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UCSB LIBRARY

THE

PROVINCIAL LETTERS

BLAISE PASCAL

A NEW TRANSLATION

WITH

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION AND NOTEb
BY RKV. THOMAS M'CRIE

PRECEDED BT

A LIFE OF PASCAL, A CRITICAL ESSAY,
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE

Ad mum. Domine Jesu, tribunal app«llo." — PASCAL

That miracle of universal genius.'1 — SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON

EUITKI) BT

O. W. WIGHT, A. M.

BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, MIFF LIN AND COMPANY,

GTjje liiucrotBt- press,

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THIS volume — the first of Pascal's works — is composed of
five parts : 1st, " Life, Genius, and Discoveries of Pascal,"
from the North British Review ; 2d, " Pascal considered as
a Writer and a Moralist," by M. Villemain ; 3d, " Historical
Introduction to the Provincial Letters," by the translator;
4th, Bibliographical Notice; and, 5th, "The Provincial
Letters," translated by the Rev. Thomas M'Crie.

The leading article in the second number of the North
British Review, there entitled " Pascal's Life, Writings, and
Discoveries," which we entitle Life, Genius, and Discoveries
of Pascal, in order to designate its contents with more pre-
cision, contains the best general summary of Pascal's career
that we have been able to find. It gives especially a full
and reliable account of Pascal's labors in the field of scien-
tific discovery. Information upon this point we have re-
garded as the more necessary, inasmuch as the purely scien-
tific writings of Pascal, having become obsolete after the
lapse of two centuries, are not deemed worthy of translation
and reproduction in our series of French Classics.

The Essay of M. Villemain on " Pascal considered as a
Writer and a Moralist," written as an introduction to his
edition of the Provincial Letters, and subsequently published
among his Melanges, is one of the finest pieces of literary
criticism in the French language. In translating it for

6 EDITOR'S PREFACE.

present use, we have aimed to be faithful to the original ;
but that delicate eloquence, which no foreign words can
adequately reproduce, which is a characteristic of M. Ville-
main's style, we have felt and admired ; but when we have
thought to compass it with some form of expression, we
have always found it eluding our grasp, as the sunlight
escapes when an attempt is made to shut it into a room.

The "Historical Introduction," by the translator, Rev.
Mr. M'Crie, is an able review of the times in which Pascal
wrote his celebrated Provincial Letters. It contains an hon-
est, judicious statement of the questions that arose dunng
the controversy in which Pascal and the Port-Royalists were
engaged. It exhibits adequate theological scholarship, be-
coming moderation, and an integrity that is proof against
the zeal of party and sect.

The Bibliographical Notice indicates the various sources
of information in regard to Pascal and his works.

We have adopted, without alteration, except in the cor-
rection of typographical errors, M'Crie's translation of the
Provincial Letters. He has fully comprehended Pascal's
meaning, has thoroughly understood the points discussed,
and has rendered his author with remarkable fidelity into
English. His notes are sufficiently copious, and give just
the kind of information needed by any reader who has not
made an especial study of Port-Royal and its famous contro-
rersy with the Jesuits. Mr.^I'Crie's translation is not fault-
less, however ; it does not adequately represent the inimitable
style of Pascal. Inimitable ! We use the word advisedly,
and it conveys an ample apology for our translator. That
atyle so vivacious, so piquant, so graceful, so delicate, so
easy, so natural, is at once the admiration and despair o>*

EDITORS PREFACE.

great French writers. Who can translate it, if great artists
in language cannot successfully imitate it in Pascal's own
tongue ? Our readers, then, must accept this translation, and
comfort themselves with the very important fact that they
have Pascal's meaning faithfully rendered into English.

We add the whole of Mr. M'Crie's modest Preface, not
only in justice to him, but for the information it contains :

" The following translation of the Provincial Letters was
undertaken several years ago, in compliance with the sug-
gestion of a revered parent, chiefly as a literary recreation
in a retired country charge, and, after being finished, was
laid aside. It is now published at the request of friends,
who considered such a work as peculiarly seasonable, and
more likely to be acceptable at the present crisis, when gen-
eral attention has been again directed to the popish contro-
versy, and when such strenuous exertions are being made by
the Jesuits to regain influence in our country.

i* None are strangers to the fame of the Provincials, and
few literary persons would choose to confess themselves alto-
gether ignorant of a work which has acquired a world-wide
reputation. Yet there is reason to suspect that few books
of the same acknowledged merit have had a more limited
circle of bona fide English readers. This may be ascribed,
in a great measure, to the want of a good English transla-
tion. Two translations of the Provincials have already ap-
peared in our language. The first was contemporary with
the Letters themselves, and was printed at London in 1657,
under the title of ' Les Provinciates ; or, The Mysterie ol
Jesuitism, discovered in certain Letters, written upon occa-
sion of the present differences at Sorbonne, between the Jan-

8 EDITORS PREFACE.

wnists and the Molinists, from January 1656 to March 1657
8. N. Displaying the corrupt Maximes and Politicks of that
Society. Faithfully rendered into English. Sicut Serpen-
fcs.' Of the translation under this unpromising title, it may
only be remarked, that it is probably one of the worst speci-
mens of ' rendering into English' to be met with, even during
that age when little attention was paid to the art of transla-
tion. Under its uncouth phraseology, not only are the wit
and spirit of the original completely shrouded, but the mean-
ing is so disguised that the work is almost as unintelligible
as it is uninteresting.

" Another translation of the Letters — of which I was not
aware till I had completed mine — was published in London
in 1816. On discovering that a new attempt had been
made to put the English public in possession of the Provin-
cials, and that it had failed to excite any general interest, I
was induced to lay aside all thoughts of publishing my ver-
sion ; but, after examining the modern translation, I became
convinced that its failure might be ascribed to other causes
than want of taste among us for the beauties and excellences
of Pascal. This translation, though written in good English,
bears evident marks of haste, and of want of acquaintance
vith the religious controversies of the time ; in consequence
wf which, the sense and spirit of the original have been cither
entirely lost, or so imperfectly developed, as to render its
perusal exceedingly tantalizing and unsatisfactory.

"It remains for the public to judge how far the present
version may have succeeded in giving a more readable and
faithful transcript of the Provincial Letters. No pains, at
.east, have been spared to enhance its interest and insure its
Oddity. Among the numerous French editions of the Let

EDITOR'S PREFACE. 9

lers, the basis of the following translation is that of Amster-
dam, published in four volumes, 12mo., 1767 ; with the notes
of Nicole, and his prefatory History of the Provincials, which
were translated from the Latin into French by Mademoiselle
de Joncourt. With this and other French editions I have
compared Nicole's Latin translation, which appeared in 1658,
and received the sanction of Pascal.

" The voluminous notes of Nicole, however interesting
they may have been at the time, and to the parties involved
in the Jansenist controversy, are not, in general, of such a
kind as to invite attention now ; nor would a full translation
even of his 'historical details, turning as they do chiefly on
local and temporary disputes, be likely to reward the pa-
tience of the reader. So far as they were fitted to throw
light on the original text, I have availed myself of these,
along with other sources of information, in the marginal
notes. Some of these annotations, as might be expected
from a Protestant editor, are intended to correct error, or
to guard against misconception.

" To the full understanding of the Provincials, howevei,
some idea of the controversies which occasioned their pub-
lication seems almost indispensable. This I have attempted
to furnish in the Historical Introduction ; which will also be
Vmnd to contain some interesting facts, hitherto uncollected,
and borrowed from a variety of authorities not generally
accessible, illustrating the history of the Letters and the
oarties concerned in them, with a vindication of Pascal
from the charges which this work has provoked from so
many quarters against him."

Another translation exists, made by George Pearce, Esq

10 EDITOR'S PREFACE.

and published by Longmans in 1849. It is in every way
inferior to the translation of Mr. M'Crie.

The three different introductions to this volume, which
afford a survey of Pascal from a scientific, from a literary,
and from a theological point of view, give the amplest
means of forming a correct and adequate judgment of that
wonderful man, whom the great Sir William Hamilton
called "a miracle of universal genius."

We hope soon to add another volume from Pascal, con-
taining the Thoughts ; and now send forth the Provincial
Letters, devoutly praying Heaven that they may continue
to spread the " plague of ridicule" through ranks hostile to
spiritual freedom and eternal truth.

O. W. WlOHT.

FUUWABT, 1868

CONTENTS.

Live, GENIUS, AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL, . . .15
PASCAL CONSIDERED AS A WRITES AND A MORALIST, . . .65
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, ........ 88

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, ........ 187

LETTER L

Disputes in the Sorbonne, and the invention of proximate power
— a term employed by the Jesuits to procure the censure of M.
Arnauld, 141

LETTER II.

Of sufficien grace, which turns out to be not sufficient— Concert
between the Jesuits and the Dominicans — A parable, . . 154

Reply of " the Provincial" to the first two Letters, . . .164

LETTER EL

Injustice, absurdity, and nullity of the censure on M. Arnauld— A
personal heresy, Id

LETTER IV.

Actual grace and sins of ignorance — Father Bauny'a Summary of
sins, 178

LETTER V.

Design of the Jesuits in establishing a new system of morals-
Two sorts of casuists among them — A great many lax and some
severe ones — Reason of this difference — Explanation of the doc-
trine of tjrobabilism — A multitude of modem and unknown au-
thors substituted in the place of the holy fathers — Escobar, . 194

[2 CONTENTS.

LETTER VI.

PAOI

Various artifices of the Jesuits to elude the authority of the gospe ,
of councils and of the popes — Some consequences resulting from
their doctrine of probability — Their relaxations in favor of bene-
ficiaries, of priests, of monks, and of domestics— Story of John
d'Alba, 218

LETTER VII.

Method of directing the intention adopted by the casuists — Permis-
sion to kill in defence of honor and property, extended even to
priests and monks — Curious question raised as to whether Jesuits
may be allowed to kill Jansenists 230

LETTER VIII.

Corrupt maxims of the casuists relating to judges — Usurers — The
Contract Mohatra — Bankrupts — Restitution — Divers ridiculous
notions of these same casuists, £43

LETTER IX.

False worship of the Virgin introduced by the Jesuits — Devotion
made easy — Their maxims on ambition, envy, gluttony, equiv-
ocation, mental reservations, female dress, gaming, and hearing
mass 266

LETTER X.

Palliatives applied by the Jesuits to the sacrament of penance, in
their maxims regarding confession, satisfaction, absolution, prox-
imate occasions of sin, and love to God, 284

LETTER XL

The Letters vindicated from the charge of profaneness — Ridicule a
fair weapon, when employed against absurd opinions — Rules to
be observed in the use of this weapon — Charitableness and dis-
cretion of the Provincial Letters — Specimens of genuine profane-
ness in the writings of Jesuits, 808

LETTER XII.

The quirks and chicaneries of the Jesuits on the subjects of alms-
giving and simony, ......... 82

CONTENTS. 13

LETTER

PAOI

fidelity of Pascal's quotations — Speculative murder — Killing for
•lander — Fear of the consequences — The policy of Jesuitism, . 888

LETTER XIV.

On murder — The Scriptures on murder — Lessius, Molina, and Lay-
man on murder — Christian and Jesuitical legislation contrasted, 355

LETTER XV.

On calumny — M. Puys and Father Alby — An odd heresy — Bare-
faced denials — Flat contradictions and vague insinuations em-
ployed by the Jesuits — The Capuchin's Mentiris impudentissime, 878

LETTER XVI.

Calumnies against Port-Royal — Port-Royalists no heretics— M. de
St. Cyran and M. Arnauld vindicated — Slanders against the
nuns of Port-Royal — Miracle of the holy thorn — No impunity
for slanderers — Excuse for a long letter, ..... 393

LETTER XVII.

The author of the Letters vindicated from the charge of heresy —
The five propositions — The popes fallible in matters of fact — Per-
secution of the Jansenists — The grand object of the Jesuits, . 419

LETTER XVHI.

The sense of Jansenius not the sense of Calvin — Resistibility of
grace — Jansenius no heretic — The popes may be surprised — Tes-
timony of the senses — Condemnation of Galileo — Conclusion, . 444

LETTER XIX.

Fragment of a nineteenth Provincial Letter, addressed U Pere
Annat, ........... 401

LIFE, GENIUS, AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES
OF PASCAL.

Iff looking back on the great events by which civilization and
knowledge have been advanced, and in estimating the intellec-
tual and moral energies by which their present position has
been attained, we cannot fail to perceive that the master-steps
in our social condition have been the achievement of a few
gifted spirits, some of whose names neither history nor tradi-
tion has preserved. We do not here allude to the progress of
individual States, struggling for supremacy in trade or in com-
merce, in arts or in arms, but to those colossal strides in civil-
ization which command the sympathy and mould the destinies
of mankind.

Every nation has its peculiar field of glory — its band of
heroes — its intellectual chivalry — its cloud of witnesses; but
heroes however brave, and sages however wise, have often no
reputation beyond the shore or the mountain range which cou-
fines them ; and men who rank as demigods in legislation or
in war, are often but the oppressors and the corrupters of their
more peaceful and pious neighbors. Traced in the blood of
their victims, and emblazoned in acts of strangled liberty, their
titles of renown have not been registered in the imperishable
records of humanity. Without the stamp of that philanthropy
and wisdom which the family of mankind can cherish, their
patents of nobility are not passports to immortality. The men
who bear them have no place in the world's affections, and
their name and their honors must perish with the community
that gave them.

But while there are deeds of glory which benefit directly only
the people among whom they arc- done, or the nation whom

16 I, IKK, GENIUS, AND

they exalt, they may nevertheless have the higher character of
exercising over our species a general and an inestimable influ-
ence. When Regulus sacrificed his lite by denouncing to the
Roman senate the overtures of Carthage, he was as mmh a
martyr for truth as for Rome, and every country and every age
will continue to admire the moral grandeur of tlie sacrifice.
When Luther planted the standard of the Reformation in Ger-
many, and confronted the Pope, wielding the sceptre of sov-
ereign power, he became the champion of civil and religious
liberty in every land ; the assertor of the rights of universal
conscience — the apostle of truth, who taught the world to dis-
tinguish the religion of priestcraft from the faith once delivered
to the saints. Hence may the Roman patriot become the guide
and the instructor of civilized as well as of barbarous nations;
and the hero of the Reformation, the benefactor of the Catholic
as well as of the Protestant Church.

It is not easy to estimate the relative value of those noble
bequests which man thus makes to his species. Deeds of Ro-
man virtue and of martyr zeal are frequently achieved in hum-
ble life, without exciting sympathy or challenging applause;
but when they throw their radiance from high places, and cast
their halos round elevated rank or intellectual eminence, they
light up the whole moral hemisphere, arresting the affections
of living witnesses, and, through the page of history, command-
ing the homage and drawing forth the aspirations of every
future age.

It has not been permitted to individuals to effect with their
single arm those great revolutions which urge forward the
destinies of the moral, the intellectual, and the political world.
The benefactors of mankind labor in groups, and shine in con-
stellations; and though their leading star may often be the
chief object of admiration, yet his satellites must move along
vith him, and share his glory. Surrounded with Kepler, and
Galileo, and Hook, and Halley, and Flamsteed, and Laplace,
Newton completes the seven pleiads by whom the system of
the universe was developed. Luther, and Calvin, and Zwingle,
and Knox form the group which rescued Christendom fronr.
Papal oppression. Watt, and Arkwright, and Brindley, and
Bell have made water and iron the connecting links of nations
and have armed mechanism with superhuman strength, and al-

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 17

human skill. By the triple power of perseverance, wis-
dom, and eloquence, Clarkson, and Wilberforce, and Fox have
wrenched from the slave his manacles and fetters ; and we look
forward with earnest anticipation to the advent and array of
other sages who shall unshackle conscience and reason — unlock
the world's granaries for her starving children — carry the torch-
light of education and knowledge into the dens of ignorance
and vice — and, with the amulet of civil and religious liberty,
emancipate immortal man from the iron-grasp of superstition
and misrule.

Although we have glanced at some of the principal groups
of public benefactors, yet there are others which, though less
prominent in the world's eye, ire, ie72r*beless, interesting ob-
jects both for our study and imitation. In one of these stands
pre-eminent the name of Pascal, possessing peculiar claims on
the love and admiration of his species. As a geometer and
natural philosopher, his inventive genius has placed him on the
same level with Newton, and Leibnitz, and Huygens, and Des-
cartes. As a metaphysician and divine, he baffled the subtlety
and learning of the Sof bonne; as a writer, at once powerful
and playful, eloquent and profound, he shattered the strong,
holds of Jesuitism ; and as a private Christian, he adorned the
doctrine of his Master with lofty piety, inflexible virtue, and
all those divine graces which are indigenous in the heart which
suffering and self-denial have abased.

The celebrated Bayle has affirmed that the life of Pascal is
worth a hundred sermons, and that his acts of humility and
devotion will be more effective against the libertinism of the
age than a dozen of missionaries. The observation is as in
strnctive as it is just. During the brief interval which we
weekly consecrate to eternity, the impressions of Divine truth
scarcely survive the breath which utters them. The preacher's
homily, however eloquent, is soon forgotten ; and the mission-
ary's expostulation, however earnest, passes away with the
heart-throb which it excites ; and if a tear falls, or a sigh es-
capes amid the pathos of severed friendship, or the terrors of
coming judgment, the evaporation of the one and the echo of
the other are the only results on which the preacher can rely.
,t is otherwise, however, with the lessons which we ourselves
.earn from illustrious examples of departed piety and wisdom.

18 LIFE, GENIUS, AX 3

The martyr's enduring faith appeals to the heart with the com-
bined energy of precept and example. The sage's gigantic in
tellect, purified and chastened with the meek and lowly spirit
of the Gospel, becomes a beacon-light to the young and an
anchor to the wavering. And when faith is thus ennobled by
reason, reason is hallowed in return ; and under this union of
principles, too often at variance, hope brightens in their com-
mingled radiance, and the unsettled or distracted spirit resta
with unflinching confidence on the double basis of secular and
celestial truth. Even in a heathen age, the doubts and fears
of Diocles were instantly dissipated, when he saw Epicurus on
his bended knees doing homage to the Father of gods and men.

There is, perhaps, no period in the history of our faith when
the life and labors of Pascal — his premature genius and hia
brilliant talents — his discoveries and his opinions — his sorrows
and his sufferings — his piety and his benevolence — his humility
and his meekness — could be appealed to with more effect than
that in which our own lot is cast. When a political religion is
everywhere shooting op in rank luxuriance, as the basis of
political institutions ; when the temple of God has become the
haunt of the money-changers, and the sacred offices of the
ministry are bought and sold like the produce of the earth ;'
when the wealth which God himself conferred, and the intel-
lectual gifts which he gave, are marshalled in fierce hostility
against the evangelism of his word ; — in such an age, it may be
useful to hold np the mirror to a Eoman Catholic layman — to
the sainted and immortal Pascal — to reflect to all classes, to
priest and people, a photogenic picture of a life of bright ex-
ample, pencilled by celestial light; and, as time obliterates its
shaded groundwork, developing new features for our love and
admiration.

Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont, on the 19th June, 1623.
His family, who had been ennobled by Louis XI. about 1478,
held from that time important offices in Auvergne ; and his
father, Stephen Pascal, was the first President of the Court of
Aides at Clermont-Ferrand. His mother, Antoinette Begon.
died in 1626, leaving behind her one son, Blaise, and twc
daughters, Gilberte, born in 1620, and Jacqueline, born it

1 This is more applicable to England than to America.— ED.

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 19

1625. But though thus deprived of those inestimable instruc-
tions which maternal fondness can alone supply, the loss was,
to a great extent, compensated by the piety and affection of
their remaining parent. Abandoning to his brother his profes-
sional duties in Auvergne, that he might devote all his time to
the education of his family, Stephen Pascal took up his resi-
dence in Paris in 1631. Here he became the sole instructor of
his son in literature and science, and of his two daughters in
Latin and in belles-lettres; and with the lessons of secular wis-
dom he blended that higher learning which formed so con-
spicuous a feature in the future history of his family.

It was now the spring-tide of science throughout Europe, and
Stephen Pascal was one of its most active promoters. His
knowledge of geometry and physics had gained him the friend-
ship of Descartes, Gassendi, Roberval, Mersenne, Carcavi, Pail-
leur, and other philosophers in Paris, who assembled at each
other's houses to impart and receive instruction. This little
band of sages maintained an active correspondence with the
congenial spirits of other lands, and in this interchange of dis-
covery, the achievements and the domain of science were simul-
taneously extended. Men of rank and influence offered their
homage to the rising genius of the age ; and such was the
progress of this infant association, that, under the enlightened
administration of Colbert, it became the nucleus of the cele-
brated Academy of Sciences, which Louis XIV. established by
'royal ordonnance" in 1666.

At the meetings of this society, Blaise Pascal was occasion-
ally present. Though imperfectly apprehended, the truths of
science inflamed his youthful curiosity, and such was his ardor
°or knowledge, that,, at the age of eleven, he was ambitious of
Leaching as well as of learning; and he composed a little trea-
tise on the cessation of the sounds of vibrating bodies when
touched by the finger. Perceiving his passion for mathematical
etudies, and dreading their interference with the more appro-
priate pursuits in which he was engaged, his father prohibited
the study of geometry, but, at the same time, gave him a gen-
eral idea of its nature and objects, and promised him the full
gratification of his wishes when the proper time should arrive.
The aspirations, however, of heaven-born genius were not thus
to be repressed. The very prohibition to study geometry served

fO LIFE, GENII'S, AND

but to enhance the love of it. In his leisure hours he was found
alone in his chamber, tracing, in lines of coal, geometrical fig-
ures on the wall ; and on one occasion he was surprised by his
father, just when he had succeeded in obtaining a demonstra-
tion of the thirty-second proposition of the First Book of
Euclid, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two
right angles. Astonished and overjoyed, his father rushed to
his friend M. Pailleur to announce the extraordinary fact; and
the young geometer was instantly permitted to study, unre-
strained, the Elements of Euclid, of which he soon made him-
self master, without any extrinsic aid. From the geometry ol
planes and solids, he passed to the higher branches of the
science ; and before he was sixteen years of age, he composed
ii treatise on the Conic Sections, which evinced the most ex-
traordinary sagacity.

Stephen Pascal was now in the zenith of his happiness, that
fatal point in the horoscope of man which the world covets
and the Christian dreads. In the city of the sciences, which
Paris was and still is, his son was deemed a prodigy of genius,
and his daughters, with the exterior graces of their sex and the
highest mental endowments, had attracted the admiration of
the distinguished circles which they had just begun to adorn.
An event, however, occurred, which threw this joyous family
into despair. Impoverished by wars and financial embezzle-
ments, the government found it necessary to reduce the divi-
""inds on the Hotel de Ville in Paris. The annuitants grumbled
at their loss, and meetings for discussion and expostulation
were treated by the State as seditions. Stephen Pascal, who
had invested much of his property in the Hotel de Ville, was
accused of being one of the ringleaders in the movement; and
ihe tyrant minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who could not brook
oven the constitutional expression of dissent, ordered him to be
arrested and thrown into the Bastile. Aware, however, of th
designs of the Government through the kindness of a friend, he
at first concealed himself in Paris, and subsequently took refuge
in the solitudes of Auvergne. Thus driven from his home at a
time when his youthful family required his most anxious and
watchful care, we may conceive the indignation of the citizen
when made the victim of calumny and oppression; but whr
can estimate the agonies of a parent thus severed from his chil

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 2)

dren? The thunder-cloud, however, which so blackly and
suddenly lowered upon him, as suddenly cleared away. The
God of the storm so directed it ; and marvellous was the play
of the elements by which its lightnings were chained and its
growling hushed. Tyrants are sometimes gay, and in their
gayety accessible. When their consciences cannot be reached
by the appeals of justice and truth, nor their hearts softened by
tears and cries, they may be soothed by a timely jest, or an in-
sinuating smile, or even turned from their firmest purpose by a
bold and unexpected solicitation. If, by her graceful move-
ments, Herodias's daughter could command from a heathen
tyrant a deed of cruelty which he himself abhorred, another
damsel might in like circumstances count upon an act of mercy
from a Christian cardinal. Though it is doubtful to whom we
owe it, the experiment was tried, and succeeded.

The Abbe Bossut informs us that Cardinal Richelieu had tak-
en a fancy to have Scudery's tragi-comedy of Z' Amour Tyran-
nique performed in his presence by young girls. The Duchess
d'Aiguillon, who was charged with the management of the
piece, was anxious that little Jacqueline Pascal, then about
thirteen years of age, should be one of the actresses. Gilberte,
her eldest sister, and in her father's absence the head of the
family, replied with indignation, that "the cardinal had not
been sufficiently kind to them to induce them to do him this
favor." The duchess persisted in her request, and made it un-
derstood that the recall of Stephen Pascal might be the reward
of the favor which she solicited. The friends of the family
were consulted, and it was determined that Jacqueline should
play the part which was assigned her. The tragi-comedy was
performed on the 3d April, 1639. The part by Jacqueline was
played witli a grace and spirit which enchanted the spectators,
•ind particularly the cardinal. T!ie enthusiasm of Richelieu
must have been anticipated, for Jacqueline was prepared to
take advantage of it. When the play was finished, she ap
proached the cardinal, and recited the following verses, with
the design of obtaining the recall of her father:

" Ne VOUB etonnez pas, incomparable Armand,
Si j'ai mal content^ vos yeux et vos oreilles :
Mon esprit agite de frayeurs sans pareilles,
Interdit a mon corps et voix et monverncnt •

22 LIFE, GENII'S, AND

Mais pour me rendre ici capable de vous plaire,
Kappelez de 1'exil inoii miserable i'ere."

Which may be thus rendered:

" O marvel not, Armand, the great, the wise,
If I have slightly pleased thine ear — thine eyes;
My sorrowing spini, torn by countless fear*,
Each sound forbiddeth save the voice of tears :
With power to please thee, wouldst thou me inspire —
Recall from exile now my hapless sire."

The cardinal, taking her in his arms and kissing her while
she was repeating the verses, replied, "Yes, my dear child, I
grant you what you ask; write to your father that he may re-
turn with safety." The Duchess d'Aiguillon took advantage
of the incident, and thus spoke in praise of Stephen Pascal :
" He is a thoroughly honest man ; he is very learned, and it is
a great pity that he should remain unemployed. There is his
son," added she, pointing to Blaise Pascal, "who, though he ia
scarcely fifteen years of age, is already a great mathematician."
Encouraged by her success, Jacqueline again addressed the car-
dinal : " I have still, my lord, another favor to ask." " What
is it, my child? Ask whatever you please; you are too charm-
ing to be refused any thing." "Allow my father to come him-
self to thank your eminence for your kindness." " Certainly,"
said the cardinal; "I wish to see him, and let him bring his
family along with him." On the following day Jacqueline sent
an account of this interesting episode to her father, and the
moment he received the grateful intelligence he set off for Paris.
Immediately on his arrival he hastened with his three children
to Ruel, the residence of the cardinal, who gave him the most
Haltering reception. "I know all your merit," says Richelieu.
" I restore you to your children ; and I recommend them to
your care. 1 am anxious to do something considerable for you."
In fulfilment of this promise, Stephen Pascal was appointed
Intendant of Rouen, in Normandy, in 1641. His family ac-
companied him to that citj and in the same year his eldest
daughter Gilberte, then twenty-one, was married to M. Perier,
who had distinguished himself in the service of the Govern-
ment, and who was afterwards counsellor to the Court of Aide*
•n Clermont.

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 23

Released by the return of his father from the only affliction
which had hitherto tried- him, and free to pursne the sciences
without the interruption of professional cares, Blaiso Pascal
aonceived the idea of constructing a machine for perfoiming
arithmetical operations. He was now scarcely nineteen years
of age, and he himself informs us that he contrived this machine
in order to assist his father in making the numerical calculations
which his official duties in Upper Normandy required. Thfc
construction of such a machine, however, was a much more
troublesome task than its contrivance, and Pascal not only in-
jured his constitution, but wasted the most valuable portion of
his life in his attempts to bring it to perfection.

A clockmaker in Rouen, to whom he had described his ear-
liest model, made one of his own accord, which, though beauti-
ful in its external aspect, was utterly unfit for its purpose.
This "little abortion," as Pascal calls it, was placed in the
cabinet of curiosities at Rouen, and annoyed him so much that
he dismissed all the workmen in his service, under the appre-
hension that other imperfect models might be made of the new
machine which they were employed to construct. Some time
afterwards the Chancellor Seguier, having seen the first model,
encouraged him to proceed, and obtained for him in May, 1649,
the exclusive privilege of constructing it. Thus freed from the
risk of piracy, he made more vigorous efforts to improve it.
He abandoned, as he assures us, all other duties, and thought
of nothing but the construction of his machine.

The first model which he executed proved unsatisfactory,
both in its form and its materials. After successive improve-
ments he made a second; and this again was succeeded by a
third, which went by springs, and was very simple in its con-
struction. This machine he actually used several times in the
piesence of many of his friends ; but defects gradually presented
themselves, and he executed more than fifty models, all of them
different — some of wood, others of ivory and ebony, and others
of copper — before he completed the machine, to which he in-
rited the attention of the public.

From the general description which Pascal has published o(
t..is remarkable invention, and particui&riy from the dedication
•>f it to Chancellor Seguier, it is evident that he expected much
more reputation from it than posterity has awarded. This over

24 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

estimate of its merits, founded, no doubt, on the length of time
and tlie mental energy which it had exhausted, is still more
strongly exhibited in a letter which he wrote to Christina,
Queen of Sweden, in 1650, accompanying one of the machine**1
It was in this year that Christina was crowned, with unusua.
pomp and splendor. She had announced herself as the patron
of letters and the arts throughout Europe, and had invited Pas-
cal, along with Descartes, Grotius, Gassendi, Saumaise, and
others, to invest her throne with the lustre of their genius and
learning. The state of his health prevented Pascal from thu
paying homage to the young and admired queen; but, in the
letter to which we have referred, he has made ample compen-
sation for his absence. He addresses her Majesty in a tone
frank and manly — in a strain of compliment chaste and elegant
— in language rich and beautiful — ennobling, by the happiest
antithesis, bold and touching sentiments worthy of a sage to
utter and of a queen to receive. Though only in his twenty-
seventh year, Pascal had witnessed, and even experienced, the
truth, that nations who vaunt most loudly their superiority in
science and learning have been the most guilty in neglecting
and even starving their cultivators. The French monarch had
indeed given him the exclusive privilege of his invention — the
right of expending his time, his money, and his health, in per-
fecting a machine for the benefit of France and the world ; but
like a British pateut, bearing the great seal of England, it was
not worth the wax which the royal insignia so needlessly
adorned. The minister, it must be owned, had recalled his
father from an unjust exile, and balanced the injustice by a
laborious office in the provinces; but no honor — no official sta
tion — no acknowledgment of services was ever given to his
illustrious son, the pride of his country and the glory of his

1 Pascal appears from a passage in this letter, to have sent to Christina, through
it. de Bounlfliit, a fuller history and description of the machine than the one
which he published. This singular character, who is described as a sprightly buf-
foon, »nd who engror-sed more of the queen's notice than the most eminent or nor
lavans, wn» an Abt'C, whose real name was Pierre Miclion, whom, though a priest
ttic Pope permitted to practice medicine. Snumaisr took him to Stockholm, where
ue se< ins to have been the Beau Brurninel. the wit ami the butt of the royal table
<n<l necessarily a nmre important personage there than the gravest philosopher
TJhrtr-tina, however, was obliged, by popular clamor, to dismiss him, and he after
wards became physician to the great Cunde.

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 25

age. At the very moment, too, when Pascal was composing
his letter to Christina, Descartes, one of the most immortal
names in the scientific annals of France, and several of his dis-
tinguished countrymen, were adorning the court of the Scan-
dinavian queen ; and it was, doubtless, under the pressure ot
feelings which these facts inspired that he penned the following
beautiful passage, which we have extracted from a letter which
has not even been noticed by his most eminent biographers.

After mentioning the various motives which had influenced
him in submitting his invention to her Majesty, he thus pro-
ceeds :

" What has really determined me to this is the union that I
find in your sacred person of two things that equally inspire mo
with admiration and respect — which are, sovereign authority
and solid science ; for I have an especial veneration for those
who are elevated to the supreme degree either of power or Oi
Knowledge. The latter may, if I am not mistaken, as well as the
former, pass for sovereigns. The same degrees are met in
genius as in condition ; and the power of kings over their
subjects is, it seems to me, but an image of the power of minds
over inferior minds, on whom they exercise the right of per-
suasion, which is among them what the right of command is in
political government. This second empire appears to me even
»f an order so much the more elevated, as minds are of an
order more elevated than bodies; and so much the more just,
HS it can be shared and preserved only by merit, while the
nther can be shared and preserved by birth or fortune. It
must be acknowledged, then, that each of these empires is great
in itself; but, madame, your Majesty, without being offended,
will allow me to say, one without the other appears to me de-
fective. However powerful a monarch may be, something is
wanting to his glory, if he has not mental pre-eminence ; and
however enlightened a subject may be, his condition is always
lowered by dependence. Men who naturally desire what is
most perfect, have hitherto sought in vain this sovereign par
excellence. All kings and learned men have fallen so far short
of this excellence, that they have only half fulfilled their aim;
and scarcely have our predecessors, since the beginning of the
world, seen a king even moderately learned : this master-piece
Das been reserved for the age of your Majesty. And that this

26 LIFE, GKMUS, AND

great marvel might appear accompanied with all possible sub-
jects of wonder, the degree that men could not attain has been
reached by a young queen, in whom are met the advantage of
experience with the tenderness of youth, the leisure of study
with the occupation of royal birth, and the eminence of science
with the feebleness of sex. It is your Majesty, madame, that
furnishes to the world this unique example that was wanting to
it. In you it is that power is dispensed by the light of science,
and science distinguished with the splendor of authority. On
account of this marvellous union, your Majesty sees nothing
beneath your power, as you see nothing above your mind; and
therefore you will be the admiration of all ages that are to
come, as you are the work of all the ages that are passed.
Reign, then, incomparable princess, in a manner wholly new ;
let your genius conquer every thing that is not subjected to
your arms: reign by right of birth, during a long course of
years, over so many triumphant provinces ; but reign continu-
ally by the force of your merit over the whole extent of the
earth. As for me, having been born under the former of your
empires, I wish all the world to know that I glory in living
under the latter ; and it is to bear witness to this that I dare to
lift my eyes even to my queen, in giving her this first proof of
my dependence. This, madame, is what determines me to make
to your Majesty this present, although unworthy of you." *

Such are the noble yet loyal sentiments which men of the
highest genius have ever cherished, though they may not have
had the courage, even when they had the opportunity, to avow
them. Those who have been the most forward to counsel sub-
mission to the " empire of power," have been the first to for-
get what is due to the "empire of knowledge." Though the
friend ot social order, and almost of passive obedience, Pascal,
even before a queen, has placed the dignity of Science on the
name level with the dignity of Power ; and it would have been
well for our social interests had the friends and advisers of
other sovereigns been equally true to their convictions. When
the great rights of intelligence are trampled under foot, they
*rill rise again, like the mangled polypus, from new cer tres of

1 Wo have translated this letter from the amended test of M. Oust/
ne Pascal, (>. 401.— ED.

DISCOVEUIES OF PASCAL. 27

jfe and motion. New rights wiL again spring up from the
trodden germ, and discontents, which have their hot-bed in the
feelings more than in the wants of the people, will propagate
themselves with a vital energy, to which resistance will be vain.
In the history of modern revolutions, let European nations read,
u if they can read," the lessons which they teach. Let them he
pondered by the unstable governments of France and England,
where the vessel of the State ia ever on a tempestuous ocean—
now braving the storm, now yielding to it — now among brist-
ling rocks, now in the open sea; but whether she rides in dis-
tress or in triumph, Faction is ever at the helm, and personal
and family ambition in the hold. Poetry, with her lyrics, may
charm the adventurers on their cruise — Science may guide them
through quicksands, and storms, and darkness — and Mechanism,
with her brawny arm, may push them across every obstacle of
wind and wave; but when genius, and skill, and enterprise
have filled the treasury and exalted the nation, the Poet, the
Philosopher, and the Inventor are neither permitted to labor in
its service nor share in its bounty. Her offices and her honors
have been already pledged to the minions of corruption ; and
whether genius appears in the meek posture of a suppliant, or
•n the proud attitude of a benefactor, her cries are stifled and
her claims overborne. It is pre-eminently in France and in
England where the accidents of birth and fortune repress the
heaven-born rights of moral and intellectual worth. It is pre-
eminently in the Kussian empire where a paternal, though an
absolute monarch, dispenses to every servant of the State a just
share of its wealth and its honors.'

1 By an imperial ukase, issued In 1S35, the science an<l literature of Russia, as
embodied in her Imperial Academy of Sciences, was endowed upon a most liberal
scale — involving an expenditure more than ten times larper than that which Peter
ihe Great had devoted to it By this ukase, each of the ordinary members of the
Academy was provided with a salary of 5000 roubles, with an addition of 1000
roubles after twenty years' service. A provision was also made for the.ir widows
and children under twenty-one. After twenty-five yeaif1 service, the widow and
children are entitled, on the death of the Academician, to a full year's salary, and
tc one-hrt//ot that salary as a pension for life. For shorter terms of service, tb«
oension is reduced to one-third or one-fourth of the annua1 allowance.

As an honorary member of an institution so wisely and generously endowed,
Ihe writer of this article has felt it hisdti y to make his countryman acquainted
with the great liberality of the Emperor Nicholas, the only aoverpfgi) I" the world
who has made n jiennanent and suitable [. ovision for the cultivators of science
ind literature, ind their fmnilirs

28 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

The arithmetical machine of Pascal, which has led us into
this digression, excited a considerable sensation throughout
Europe, and many attempts were made to improve its con-
struction and extend its power. De L'Epine, Boitissendeau,
and Grillet, in France, P. Morland and Gersten, in England,
and Poleni in Italy, applied to this task all their mathematica.
and mechanical skill ; but none of them seems to have devised
or constructed a machine superior to that of Pascal. The cele-
brated Leibnitz, however, directed his capacious mind to this
dimcult problem, and there is reason to believe that the two
models of a calculating machine, which he actually made, sur-
passed Pascal's both in ingenuity and power; but its compli-
cated structure, and the great expense and labor which the
actual execution of it required, discouraged its inventor, and
his friends could not prevail upon him to publish any detailed
account of its mechanism.

The construction of a calculating machine, which truly de-
serves the name, was reserved for our distinguished country-
man, Mr. Babbage. While all previous contrivances performed
only particular arithmetical operations under a sort of copart-
nery between the man and the machine, in which the latter
played a very humble part, the extraordinary invention of Mr.
Babbage actually substitutes mechanism in the place of man. A
problem is given to the machine, and it solves it by computing
a long series of numbers following some given law. In this
manner, it calculates astronomical, logarithmic, and navigation
tables, as well as tables of the powers and the products of num-
bers. It can integrate, too, innumerable equations of finite
differences, and, in addition to these functions, it does its work
cheaply and quickly, it corrects whatever eivors are accidentally
committed, and it prints all its calculation*.

This grand invention of the age was, after much negotiation,
flatroiiized by the British government, and Mr. Babbage gra-
tuitously devoted all the energies of his mind to its completion;
but the liberality of the State was not commensurate with the
genius of the inventor. The government had contracted for
the machine originally submitted to its notice. During its
progress, Mr. Babbage invented one more perfect and useful,
the construction of which required a fresh appeal to the trea-
sury. The purse-bearer of the State was perplexed with a

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 29

question of differences, which the machine could not, ana
which the House of Commons would not solve. The Shy lock
of the Exchequer was inexorable, and he not only insisted
an his pound of flesh, but upon the very nerves, arteries, and
veins with which it was penetrated ! It would puzzle the
engine, as it does us, to estimate the loss of national honoi
which this transaction may involve. Some Eastern monarch,
intent upon glory, or perhaps some democratic community in
the Far West, intent upon gain, may welcome and naturalize
this exile of mechanism, and cheaply supply the navies ot
England with astronomical and nautical tables to guide them
through the ocean.

Although Descartes could not be brought to believe that Pas-
cal, at the age of twelve, wrote the treatise on Conies which
went by his name, he was, nevertheless, universally esteemed
HS a geometer of the highest order; and we have now to view
him as an original discoverer in physics. When the engineers
of Cosmo de Medicis wished to raise water higher than thirty-
two feet by means of a sucking-pump, they found it impossible
to take it higher than thirty-one feet. Galileo, the Italian sage,
was applied to in vain for a solution of the difficulty. It had
been the belief of all ages that the water followed the piston,
from the horror which nature had of a vacuum, and Galileo
improved the dogma by telling the engineers that this horror
was not felt, or at least not shown, beyond heights of thirty-
one feet! At his desire, however, his disciple Torricelli investi-
gated the subject. He found that when the fluid raised was
f mercury, the horror of a vacuum did not extend beyond thirty
inches, because the mercury would not rise to a greater height;
and hence he concluded that a column of water thirty-one feet
high, and one of mercury thirty inches, exerted the same press-
ure upon the same base, and that the antagonist force which
counterbalanced them must in both cases be the same ; and
having learned from Galileo that the air was a heavy fluid, he
Concluded, and he published the conclusion in 1645, that the
weight of the air was the cause of the rise of water to thirty-
one feet and of mercury to thirty inches. Pascal repeated these
Hxperiments in 1646, at Rouen, oefore more than five hundred
persons, among whom were five or six Jesuits of the college,
and he obtained precisely the same results as Torricelli. The

30 LIFK, GENIUS, AND

explanation of them, however, given by the Italian philosopher,
and with which he was unacquainted, did not occur to him;
and though lie made many new experiments on a large scale
witli tubes of glass fifty feet long, they did not conduct him to
any very satisfactory results. He concluded that the vacuum
above the water and the mercury contained no portion of either
of these fluids, or any other matter appreciable by the senses ;
that all bodies have a repugnance to separate from a state of
continuity, and admit a vacuum between them; that this re-
pugnance is not greater for a largo vacuum than a small one;
that its measure is a column of water thirty-one feet high ; and
that beyond this limit a great or a small vacuum is formed
above the water with the same facility, provided no foreign ob-
stacle prevents it. These experiments and results were pub-
lished by our author in 1647, under the title of Nbuvelles Ex-
periences touchant le Vuide; but no sooner had they appeared
than they experienced from the Jesuits and the followers of
Aristotle the most violent opposition. Stephen Noel, a Jesuit,
and rector of the College de Paris, assailed the new doctrines in
a letter addressed to Pascal himself, and afterwards in a work,
entitled Le Plein du Vuide, which was printed in 1648. To
these objections Pascal replied in two letters, addressed to Noel;
but though he had no difficulty in overturning the contemptible
reasoning of his antagonist, he found it necessary to appeal to
new and more direct experiments.

The explanation of Torricelli had been communicated to him
a short time after the publication of his work; and assuming
that the mercury in the Torricellian tube was suspended by the
weight or pressure of the air, he drew the conclusion that the
nercury would stand at different heights in the tube if the col-
umn of air was more or less high. These differences, however,
were too small to be observed under ordinary circumstances;
and he therefore conceived the idea of observing the mercury

t Clermont, a town in Auvergne, situated about 400 toises
above Paris, and on the top of the Puy de D6me, a mountain
500 toises above Clermont. The state of his own health did
not permit him to undertake a journey to Auvergne; but in a
etter, dated the 15th November, 1647, he requested his brother-

n-law, M. Perier, to go immediately to Clennont to make the
observations which he required. M. Perier was then at Mo»

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 31

ins, but was prevented by his professional occupations, as well
as by the state of the weather, from fulfilling the anxious desire
of Pascal till the 19th September, 1648; and on the 22d Sep-
tember he sent to his friend a full account of the experiment,
with an explanation of the delay which had taken place.

On the morning of Saturday, the 19th September, the day
fixed for the interesting observation, the weather was unset-
tled ; but about five o'clock the summit of the Puy de Ddme
began to appear through the clouds, and Perier resolved to pro-
ceed with the experiment. The leading characters in Clermont,
whether ecclesiastics or laymen, had taken a deep interest in
the subject, and had requested Perier to give them notice of his
plans. He accordingly summoned his friends, and at eight in
the morning there assembled in the garden of the Peres Mi-
ni ines, about a league below the town, M. Bannier, one of the
Peres Minimes, M. Mosnier, canon of the cathedral church,
along with Messrs. La Ville and Begon, counsellors in the
Court of Aides, and M. La Porte, doctor and professor of medi-
cine in Clermont. These five individuals were not only distin-
guished in their respective professions, but also by their scien-
tific acquirements ; and M. Perier expresses his delight at
naving been on this occasion associated with them.

M. Perier began the experiment by pouring into a vessel six-
teen pounds of quicksilver, which he had rectified during the
preceding days. He then took two glass tubes, four feet long,
of the same bore, and hermetically sealed at one end, and open
at the other ; and making the ordinary experiment of a vacuum
with both, he found that the mercury stood in each of them at
the same level, and at the height of twenty-six inches, three
lines and a half. This experiment was repeated twice, with the
same result. One of these glass tubes, with the mercury stand-
ing in it, was left under the care of M. Chastin, one of the
religious of the house, who undertook to observe and mark
any changes in it that might take place during the day ; and
the party already named set out, with the other tube, for the
summit of the Puy de Ddme, about 500 toises above their first
station. Upon arriring there they found that the mercury
stood at the height of twenty-three inches and two lines — no
*ess than three inches and one and a half lines lower than it
stood at the Minimes. The party was "struck with admira-

$2 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

tion and astonishment at this result;" and "so great was their
surprise, that they resolved to repeat the experiment nmler
various forms." The glass tube, or the barometer, as we may
call it, was placed in various positions on the summit of the
mountain; — sometimes in the small chapel which is there;
sometimes in an exposed, and sometimes in a sheltered position;
sometimes when the wind blew, and sometimes when it was
calm; sometimes in rain, and sometimes in a fog; and under
all these various influences, which fortunately took place during
the same day, the quicksilver stood at the same height ot
twenty-three inches, two lines. During their descent of the
mountain they repeated the experiment at Lafond de VArbre* an
intermediate station, nearer the Minimes than the summit of
the Puy, and they found the mercury to stand at the height of
twenty -five inches, a result with which the party was greatly
pleased, as indicating the relation between the height of the
mercury and the height of the station. Upon reaching the
Minimes they found that the mercury had not changed its
height, notwithstanding the inconstancy of the weather, which
had been alternately clear, windy, rainy, and foggy. M. Per-
rier repeated the experiments with both the glass tubes, and
found the height of the mercury to be still twenty-six inches,
three and a half lines.

On the following morning M. de la Marc, priest of the ora-
tory, to whom M. Perier had mentioned the preceding results,
proposed to have the experiment repeated at the top and bottom
of the towers of N&tre Dame, in Clermont. He accordingly
yielded to his request, and found the difference to be two lines.
Upon comparing these observations, M. Perier obtained the fol-
lowing results, showing the changes in the altitude of the mercu-
rial column, corresponding to certain differences of altitude :

Difference of Chansres In the height

Altitude. of the Mercur*.

TOISES. LINES.

500 371

150 15i

27 2i

7 i

Whon Pascal received these results all his difficulties were re-
mover. ; and perceiving, from the two last observations in th«

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 33

preceding table, that twenty toises, or about 120 feet, produced
a change of two lines, and seven toises, or forty-two feet, a
change of half a line, he made the observation at the top and
bottom of the steeple of St. Jacques de la Boucherie, which was
about twenty-four or twenty-five toises, or about 150 feet high ;
and he found a difference of more than two lines in the mer-
curial column; and in a private house, ninety steps high, he
found a difference of half a line.

After this important experiment was made, Pascal intimated
to M. Perier that different states of the weather would occasion
differences in the barometer, according as it was cold, hot, dry,
or moist; and in order to put this opinion to the test of experi-
ment, M. Perier, who was then living at Clermont, instituted a
series of observations, which he continued from the beginning
of 1649, till March, 1651. Corresponding observations were
made at the same time at Paris, and at Stockholm, by the
French ambassador, M. Chanut, and Descartes ; and from these
it appeared that the mercury rises in weather which is cold,
cloudy, and damp, and falls when the weather is hot and dry,
and during rain and snow ; but still with such irregularities
that no general rule could be established. At Clermont, the
difference between the highest and the lowest state of the mer-
cury was one inch, three and a half lines ; at Paris the same ;
and at Stockholm two inches, two and a quarter lines.

This grand experiment, and the results which it established,
produced a great sensation throughout the scientific world.
The Jesuits were silenced, but not soothed ; and when they
durst not again impugn the great truth which had been so
triumphantly established, they strove to deprive Pascal of the
merit of the discovery. In the Preface to the Theses on Phi-
osophy, which had been supported in the College of Jesuits,
the author charged Pascal with appropriating to himself the
discovery of Torricelli, and maintained that the experiments
which he had made in Normandy had been previously per-
formed .in Poland, by a Capuchin of the name of Valerien
Magni. These Theses were dedicated to M. de Ribeyre, a
friend of Pascal's, and first president of the Court of Aides at
Clermont; and in order to remove the unfavorable impression
which the charges might have made, Pascal gave a minute
account of his proceeding* in i\ beautiful letter, adorned with

•j*

54 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

chat gracefulness of style and honesty of sentiment which he
BO singularly combined.

To this letter M. Ribeyre replied in a manner every way
Batisfactory, and concluding in terms so touching and beauti-
fully expressed, that we cannot withhold the passage from our
readers :

" Sir, if you have believed yourself in need of justification
with respect to me, — I have known your candor and sincerity
too well to suppose that you could ever be convicted of having
done aught against the virtue which you profess, which appears
in all your actions, and in your manners. / honor and revere
it in you more than your science ; and as you equal the most
famous of the age in both, do not think it strange, if, adding
to the common esteem of other men the obligation of a friend-
ship contracted long years ago with your father, I subscribed
myself more than any other, sir, your, &c. RIBEYKE."

The serenity of Pascal's mind was again disturbed by another
attempt to deprive him of his discovery. The illustrious Des-
cartes, to whose transcendent genius we have already done
homage, was the individual who preferred this claim. It was
made in June, 1647, in a letter to M. Carcavi, who immediately
communicated it to Pascal ; but such were his feelings on the
occasion, that he never condescended to notice the reclama-
tion. Baillet, in his life of the French philosopher, informs us
that in 1647 Descartes met young Pascal in the Place Royal e,
in Paris, where they conversed respecting his experiments at
Rouen. Descartes stated that they were conformable to the
principles of his philosophy, and is said to have advised Pascal
to repeat the experiment on a mass of air, and also to have
suggested the great experiment on the Puy de D6rne. On the
authority of this statement, Baillet accuses Pascal of plagiarism :
but Descartes himself has made no such charge ; and even if
we admit the correctness of all that he wrote to Carcavi, the
admission will neither add to his own fame nor detract from
that of Pascal.1

1 As this portion of scientific history has not been examined, the following
abstract of it may be interesting. On the llth of June, 1C49. t)escartes wrote thus
to Ciircavi : " Hoc tamen persuasum babeo tibi non rtlsplieituruin quod te rogar«
%mleain ut me doceas snccesMitn experiment! ciijusdnin quod II Pascal fe.cis»e »u

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 3o

In pursuing his experiments on the weight of the air, Pascal
»»as led to inquire into the general laws of the equilibrium of
fluids, and in the year 1653 he composed two treatises1 on that
subject, which were not published till 1663, the year after his
death. In order to determine the general conditions of tho
equilibrium of fluids, Pascal supposes two unequal apertures to
be made in a vessel filled with a fluid and closed on all sides.
If two pistons are applied to these apertures, and pressed by
forces proportional to the area of the apertures, the fluid will
remain in equilibria. Having established this truth by two
methods equally ingenious and satisfactory, he deduces from it
the different cases of the equilibrium of fluids, — and particularly
with solid bodies, compressible and incompressible, when either
partly or wholly immersed in them. But the most remarkable
part of this treatise, and one which, of itself, would have im-
mortalized him, is his application of the general principle to the
construction of what he calls the Mechanical Machine for mul-
tiplying forces, an effect which, he says, may be produced to
any extent we choose, as one man may, by means of this ma-
chine, raise a weight of any magnitude. This new machine is
the Hydrostatic Press, first introduced by our celebrated coun-
tryman, M. Bramah ; and to whatever extent it has been used,
we have no hesitation in saying that it will yet perform more
important functions than have hitherto been assigned to it.

Pascal's treatise on the weight of the whole mass of air
forms the basis of the modern science of Pneumatics. In order
to prove that the mass of air presses by its weight on all the

facere dicitnr in montibns Arverni», ad sciendmn utrum argentnm vivnm adscen-
dat ulterius in tnbulo ad radices montis, et quantum altius ascendat, quatn in ejuB
cacumine. Ju% mihi esset hoc ipsum ab ijtso potius quam a te expectare, idto
quod ego ip»e jam bienmium efflnifKii^ nwctor fuit eju« experiment^ faoien-di^
cumqtie cerium reddiderim, me de succesau non diibitare, qunnqua/m id
(otperimvntum nunqiiMtn fecerim.'" — Ren. Descartes Epistolae, Pars Hi , Epis. I.,
57, p. 279. Amstael. 1683. Carcavi gave him the desired information on the 9th
of July, 1649. but took no notice of the charge against his friend. In his reply 01
the 7th of Anenst. Descartes thanks him for '.he account of Pascal's experiment,
infl adds, " Intererat mea id rescire, ipse enim petii ab illo. jam exacto biennio, ut
idfitoeret, eumqne pnlchri successes certnm reddid.' quod esset omnino conformt
meis principiis, absque quo mi/nquum, de eo cogitasxet, eo quod contrariii teno-
batur sentential."— Id. Ib., Epist. 69, p. 283. There is an obvious contradiction In
these passages. If Descartes' principles suggested the experiment, his personal
"uggeslion of it must !,« a mistake.

1 Dt rKq-uilibre fits Liqueur* and De la Pesanteitr At la 3fa»se de I'Air

36 LIKE, UENICS, AND

bodies which it surrounds, and also that it is elastic and com-
pressible, he carried a balloon half tilled with air to the top of
the Puy de D6me. It gradually inflated itself as it ascended,
and when it reached the summit it was quite full, and swollen,
as if fresh air had been blown into it; *or, what is the same
thing, it swelled in proportion as the weight of the column o«
air which pressed upon it was diminished. When again bicnght
down, it became more and more flaccid, and when it readied
the bottom, it resumed its original condition. In the nine
chapters, of which the treatise consists, he shows that all the
phenomena and effects hitherto ascribed to the horror of a
vacuum arise from the weight of the mass of air; and after ex-
plaining the variable pressure of the atmosphere in different
localities, and in its different states, and the rise of water in
pumps, he calculates that the whole mass of air rdund our globe
weighs 8,983,889,440,000,000,000 French pounds.

Having thus completed his researches respecting elastic and
incompressible fluids, Pascal seems to have resumed, with a
fatal enthusiasm, his mathematical studies; but, unfortunately
lor science, several of the works which he composed have been
lost.1 Others, however, have been preserved, which entitle
him to a high rank among the greatest mathematicians of the
age. Of these, his Traite du Triangle Arithmetique, his Trac-
tatus de numericis ordinibus, and his Problemata, de Cycloide
are the chief. By means of the Arithmetical Triangle* an in-
vention equally ingenious and original, he succeeded in solving
a number of theorems, which it would have been difficult to
demonstrate in any other way, and in finding the co-efficients
of different terms of a binomial raised to an even and positive
nower. The same principles enabled him to lay the foundation
j>f the doctrine of probabilities, an important branch of mathe-
r.iatical science, which Huygens, a few years afterwards, im-
proved, and which, in our own day, the Marquis Laplace and
M. Poisson have so greatly extended. These treatises, with the

1 These works were entitled Promote* Apolloniut Gillut, in which be ex-
te:idel the theory of Conic Sections, and described several unknown properties o
those curves; TtictionfS Sj>h«ricce, TacHont* Onnicce, Loci plant et solia/i.
Perspectives methodi, etc. The AbW Bossnt endeavored to find them, but it,
rtin.

1 This triangle 1* an isosceles right-angled triangle, divided Into triangular celta
nmilar to the original triangle.

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 37

exception of that on the Cycloid, were composed and printed
fn the year 1654, but were not published till 1668, after the
death of their author.

Although Pascal's health had suffered from the severity of
his early studies, yet it was not till 1641, when he had reached
his eighteenth year, that his constitution was seriously im-
paired. From that time "he never lived a day without pain."
The labor which he had bestowed on his arithmetical machine,
and on his physical and mathematical researches, gradually un-
dermined his constitution, and at the close of 1647 he labored
for three months under a paralytic attack, which deprived him
wholly of the use of his limbs. About this time he took up
his residence in Paris, along with his father and his sister Jac-
queline. Here he resumed all his scientific pursuits, and de-
voted himself wholly to those nobler studies which at all sea-
sons of life become an immortal nature, but which are peculiarly
appropriate when the languid and shattered ark is about to sur-
render its undying occupant. The study of Christian truth,
and the practice of Christian graces, engrossed all his thoughts ;
and though his father's piety was always ardent, yet, under the
instruction and example of his son, it acquired new brightness,
and he died in 1651, full of faith and hope. Under the same
holy tuition, his sister Jacqueline was led to renounce the world
and its pleasures, and to spend the rest of her days in the con-
Vent of Port-Royal, doing the will and following the example
of her Master.

But even these sacred duties were found to be too much for
so weak a frame; and, in order to give his mind complete re-
laxation, he made several journeys in Auvergne and other
provinces, from which he derived considerable advantage. In
1653, however, after Jacqueline's departure for Port-Royal,
Pascal found himself desolate and alone in Paris — deprived of
:he kind control of parental affection, and without those tender
cares with which a sister's love had so assiduously watched
Vim. His master-passion for study and for duty again seized
Lira. He became first its servant, and then its slave, till hia
feeble and wasted frame reminded him of his own mortality.
In order to give him even a chance of recovery, the total renun-
ciation of study, and even of the slighter exertions of the mind,
Secarne imperative. His occupations were henceforth to be in

38 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

the open air, or in the society of a few congenial friends; and
though the change was a violent inroad upon all his habits,
whether mental or physical, yet he yielded to the stern decree
on implicit obedience. It is a strange fact in the history of
our unfathomable nature that this godlike man, whom suffering
had so singularly exalted, and who had seemed to all around
him already embalmed for eternity, should, in almost the last
extremity of his being, have acquired a taste for the very pcison
which Lad been dispensed to save him. In solitude at home,
and prohibited from every mental occupation, he naturally
relished the society of friends whom he esteemed anxl loved,
and who, doubtless, offered to him all the idolatry of their af-
fections ; but habits had begun to be formed which threatened
to interfere with the higher purposes of his being, and it was
not improbable that a return to health, through the world's in-
tervention, might not be a return to his Maker. Bossnt informs
ns that he had begun to like society, and had even entertained
serious thoughts of entering into the married state, — in the hope
that an amiable companion might enliven his solitude and
alleviate his sufferings. Bat Providence had otherwise decreed.
In the month of October, 1654, when he went to take his usual
drive to the Bridge of Neuilly, Jn a carriage with four horses,
the two leaders became restive at a part of the road where
there was no parapet, and precipitated themselves into the
Seine. Fortunately, the traces which yoked them to the poles
gave way, and Pascal in his carriage stood in perilous safety on
the verge of the precipice. The effect of such a shock upon a
frame so frail and sensitive may be easily conceived. Pascal
fainted away; and though his senses returned after a consider-
able interval, his disturbed and shattered nerves never again
recovered their original tone. During his sleepless nights and
moments of depression he saw a precipice at his bedside, into
which he was in danger of falling; and it is said that he be
Heved it to be real, till a chair was placed between his bed and
;he visionary gulf which alarmed him.

Pascal did not fail to profit by this alarming incident. Re-
garding it as a message from heaven to renounce the pleasures
of society, he resolved to follow where Providence so clearly
led ; and, under the instruction of his sister, to whom he had
himself taught the same difficult lesson, he was enab'ed to carry

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 39

his resolution into effect. The spiritual bread which he had
thrown upon the waters returned to him after many days; and
lie must have felt, as we ought to feel, that it is only in the
commerce of holy living that the exchange is always iu fuvor
of the giver, and that it is but in the mutual breathings of souls
panting for immortality, that the inspirations become fuller and
stronger. The green and smiling earth, which gives up its
springs to cool the burning ether above, exhibits to us the gift
returned in gentle dews or in refreshing showers. This inter-
esting event in the life of Pascal, then in the thirty-first year oi
his age, has been mentioned in the following manner by his sis-
ter, Madame Perier :

"Jacqueline Pascal was then a religious, and led a life so
eminent for sanctity, that she edified all the convent. Being in
that state, she with pain beheld the man to whom, next under
God, she stood indebted for all the heavenly graces she en-
joyed, remain himself out of the possession of these graces ; and
as my brother made her frequent visits, so she made him fre-
quent harangues on that subject : and this she did at last with
s.o much force and energy, and yet with so much winning and
persuasive sweetness at the same time, that she prevailed upon
him, just as he had at first prevailed on her, absolutely to quit
the world ; and he accordingly went into a firm resolution of
bidding a final adieu to all public company, and of retrenching
all the little unprofitable superfluities of life, even with the risk
of his health, — because he thought salvation preferable to all
things, and the health of his soul infinitely more valuable than
that of his body."

Thus freed from the embarrassments of social life, Pasca. re-
tired to the country, renouncing the pursuits of science, and
devoting all his time to the study of the Scriptures, and the
discharge of the duties they enjoined. His great mind was
never greater than now, and though the mortal coil which en-
A rapped it was frail, and fast mouldering away, it still afforded
scope and shelter for the mighty spirit within. It is when the
material seed is exhausted in the quickening of its germ, that
vegetable life bursts forth in all its strength and beauty. It
was not to be expected that a mind of such energy as Pascal's
would be permitted to ndulge in an inglorious repose, when
the interests of truth, secular auJ divine, required its aid. Its

40 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

past acquisitions were but preparations for a future battle-field ;
and no sooner was it equipped in the full panoply of its intel-
lectual might, than there was provided an occasion for its
highest exercise. It was in the defence of Port-Royal and its
immortal band of saints and sages, and of the great truths
which reason and revelation combined to sanction, that Pascal
was summoned from his retreat, and girt himself for the con
test.

About six miles beyond Versailles, and in a secluded valle}.
stood the celebrated Abbey of Port-Royal des Champs, su
called to distinguish it from Port-Royal de Paris, the town
residence of the abbess, Augelique Arnaud. After having re-
formed the abuses and regulated the affairs of her own nun-
nery, she extended her pious cares to other institutions, where
sacred vows had given way to secular pleasures, and where
penitence and fasting had passed into riot and intemperance.
There the scions of rank and power revelled in all the gayety
of the capital. Luxurious fetes polluted the sacred groves by
day, while dancing, and gambling, and stage-plays closed the
visible revels of the night. Confiding in a stronger arm than
her own, the undaunted abbess succeeded in her holy enter-
prise. Open profligacy disappeared from the recreant nun-
neries, and her own institution acquired new celebrity and
distinction. But, exalted as was her new position and that of
her thriving community, it was destined, through suffering, to
rise to still higher purity and glory. In the cycle of the seasons
an unhealthy summer occurred. Heat and moisture united
their deleterious powers ; and dense vapors, rising from the
marshy soil, scattered their gaseous poison over the valley.
The nunnery became a hospital; and, in order to save its
inmates, the establishment was transferred to Port-Royal de
Paris, a hotel which the mother of the abbess had purchased
for their reception.

At this time the Catholic Church was divided, as every other
ihurch has since been, into two parties — the one maintaining
in their purity the great evangelical truths which Scripture so
alearly reveals, and the other accommodating its doctrines to
the weakness of human reason, and making them palatable to
that large and powerful section of society who consider religion
but as a generalization of moral duties, and its ministers aa •

D18COVKKIES OF PASCAL. 41

jational police, whose function it is to wield the terrors of the
Divine law in support of the altar and the throne. In managing
the affairs of the Church, these two parties were equally at
variance. To maintain tht, purity of its discipline — to exalt
the character of its literature — to keep up a high morality in
its clergy, and to correct the flagrant abuses which had pro-
faned its altars, were unceasingly the objects of the Catholic
Evangelists. Against such innovations, genius and casuistry
plied their skill ; the minions of corruption stood forth in fero-
cious array ; and the petty tyrants, who directed the consciences
and the will of kings, threatened with their fiercest vengeance
the exposure of their crimes.

The parties thus placed in order of battle were the Jansenists
and the Jesuits. Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres, born in
1585, and John du Verger D'Hauranne, abbot of Saint Cyran,
born in 1581, at Bayonne, were the founders of Jansenism, a
system of evangelical doctrine which they found embodied in
the almost inspired writings of Augustine, and which was given
to the world under the title of Augustinus, a posthumous work
of Jansen, which appeared in 1640, about two years after his
death. While he was at the College of Louvaine along with
Duverger, his health suffered from intense study. His physi-
cians recommended a change of air ; and, on the invitation of
his friend, lie accompanied him to Bayonne. Here, under the
roof of Duverger, the two youthful divines spent six years in
unremitting and successful study, and acquired the highest
reputation for their piety as well as their learning. The Bishop
of Bayonne extended to them his patronage. Duverger became
:i canon in the Cathedral, and Jansen head-master of the New
College; and thus did a community of feeling and of destiny
weld their young hearts into the warmest and most enduring
friendship. Duverger was soon afterwards appointed Grand
Vicar to Henry de la Rochepozay, bishop of Poitiers, who, in
1620, resigned to him the abbacy of the Monastery of Saint
Cyran.

When Cardinal Richelieu was bishop of Lucon, he was struck
With the high talent and not'e mien of the abbot; and after
his ambitious views began to be developed, he sought to pro-
pitiate his alliance by the offer of the richest bishoprics and
abbacies in his gift. Saint Cyran, however, was animated with

i2 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

'oftier objects. Possessing the highest endowments of the
sage, he adorned them with the highest attributes of the saint,
and these he had already pledged in the service of a better
Master. The cardinal was chagrined at the rejection of his
offers; and when he found himself unable to attach Saint
Cyran to his interests as a tool, he began at first to dread him,
and at last to treat him as an enemy. There were events in
the cardinal's early life which Saint Cyran could disclose, and
there were schemes in his head which he might successfully
resist. Already had he refused to sanction the divorce of tho
Duke of Orleans, to make way for his marriage to the cardi-
nal's niece ; and it became a measure of personal security to
deprive his self-created enemy of the power of injuring him.
The holy abbot was accordingly sent, in 1638 (the very year of
Jansen's death), to the castle of Vincenues, where the odor of
his sanctity and the radiance of his learning hallowed, for four
years, that gloomy prison, till, a few months before his death,
his hated oppressor was summoned to a still narrower and
darker home.

While the sisterhood of Port-Royal were residing in Paris,
the abbess became acquainted with this remarkable individual.
Pledged to the same Master, and intent on the same prize, they
resolved to re-establish Port-Royal, in order to maintain and
propagate the great evangelical principles which they had
adopted. The disciples — may we not say the worshippers? — of
Saint Cyran were equally distinguished by their learning, their
talents, and their piety ; and under his orders there assembled
at Port-Royal des Champs a sacred band, who, throwing all
their wealtii into its treasury, resolved to consecrate them-
selves to God, and, in fasting and prayer, to devote their lives
to the improvement and instruction of their species. Anthony
Arnaud and Arnaud D'Andilly, the brothers of the abbess ;
Lemaitre and De Saci, her two nephews; Nicole, Tillemont,
Lancelot, Hermaud, Renaud, and Fontaine, formed the noble
group who, in unequal dimensions and dissimilar attitudes,
occupied the grand pediment of that Christian temple. But
beneath its heavenward cusp one blank was left, which Pascal
was soon to fill. Having had frequent occasion to visit his
sister Jacqueline, the philosopher of Clermont became acquaint-
ed with the celebrated brotherhood of Port-Royal. To his

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 43

opinions and aspirations theirs were ardently responsive. The
same throb of piety beat in each heart ; the same flash ol
genius glanced in each eye ; the same notes of eloquence fell
from each tongue. Each and all of them looked to intellectual
labor as their daily toil ; to temperance and self-denial as their
spiritual medicine; to the grave as their resting-place; and to
heaven as their home.

We could have wished to give our readers some account of
the holy men who occupied the farm-house of Les Granges,
close to the Abbey of Port-Royal, and of the eminent persons
who came to enjoy their society and benefit by their instruc-
tions ; but the task, excepting in fragments, is beyond our
limits. Anthony Arnaud was the undaunted hero of the Port-
Royal enterprise. He had bravely striven with the Jesuits,
and beaten them in many a well-contested field. He had dared
even to assail the errors of Malebranche and Descartes ; but
though he never failed to crush, in his gigantic grasp, the more
tangible and outstanding heresies of his antagonists, yet the
gossamer and cobwebs of the Jesuits escaped unhurt in its in-
terstices. It required the fine touch, the tapering fingers, and
the sharp lancet of Pascal to unravel the tangled web, to ex-
tract the truth from its meshes, and to exhibit it in its native
beauty, for the reception of mankind. Arnaud and his asso-
ciates soon recognized the capacity of their young friend for so
delicate a task; and, aided by their learning and research, he
threw himself into the breach between the Jansenists and the
Jesuits.

The Auguatinu* of Jansen — the text-book of Port-Royal
theology — had been assailed by the Jesuits with the most ran-
corous hostility ; and when unable to meet its doctrines in the
fair field of discussion, they pretended to deduce from it jftre
propositions which it did not contain, and which they clothed
in language of such double meaning, that they were capable of
two or three different interpretations, and misled even honest
inquirers. We cannot even attempt to give a meager outline
of the European controversy which these propositions — occu-
pying, in* all, about fifteen lines — called forth, or of the dra-
matic incidents to which they gave rise. At its commencement,
it agitated not only France, but Italy. It disquieted kings and
princes — it shook the Vatican; and before its close, it over.

44 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

threw the perfidious but triumphant Jesuits who excited it,
and laid prostrate the temporal power of the Popes who mis-
judged it. The cause of truth, indeed, which genius and learn-
ing had plead in vain, received the first shock; and the holy
men, who stood faithful to the end, became exiles or dungeon
slaves for its sake. But though the avenging arm was not
lifted up in immediate or general retribution, it yet struck at
individual victims — it executed stern retaliation on the familie?
of ungodly princes — and sent the agonies of conscience, and the
pangs of death, to wield their fiercest power over their guilty
minions.

The first step in this exciting movement was taken ii the
Sorbonne, on the 1st of July, 1649, when M. Cornet, Syndic of
the Faculty, submitted to that body seven propositions, con-
taining heretical doctrines, which, he asserted, were making
rapid progress among the bachelors of divinity. Durirg the
sharp discussion which ensued, several of the speakers pointed
out its bearing on the doctrines of Saint Augustine, so often
authorized by Popes and Councils ; and M. Marcan prophetic-
ally declared, " that it was well enough discerned, that under
pretext of these propositions Jansen was aimed at, and that
the design was to cause the censure to fall one day upon that
author.'1'1 It was decided, however, in a meeting packed for
the purpose, that the propositions should be examined; and a
committee of eight doctors was accordingly appointed for the
purpose.

Although the disciples of Augustine had lost no time in un-
masking the designs and denouncing the malice of the Jesuits,
yet the committee resolved, and allowed their resolution to
transpire, to condemn the propositions, " without making any
distinction of the different senses of which they were capable.''
At the meeting held for this purpose on the 2d of August,
M. St. Amour, a distinguished Jansenist, served upon them an
appeal to Parliament, signed by sixty doctors, for the purpose
of preventing any decision in the Faculty. When M. Brousset
had begun to report the appeal to the Great Chamber, the
president, M. Mole, instantly stopped him. The affair* he said,
was too important to be rashly judged ; and following out this
opinion, he, in a few days, proposed a truce of some months
which the Jansenists accepted, and to which he pledged him

DISCOVKKIES OF PASCAL. 45

self on the part of the Jesuits. This triumph of the Jansenist^
however, was of short duration. The Jesuits broke the pledge
of the president. They confessed that they were bound to do
nothing for a few months, but they were not pledged to say
nothing ; and on the strength of this defence, they had pre-
pared their condemnation of the propositions; and in Septem-
ber they circulated it through the kingdom, denouncing their*
as heretical, scandalous, and contrary to Scripture!

This gross breach of faith excited general indignation. The
Jansenists, full of the energy which their cause inspired, again
appealed to Parliament for an interdict against the proceedings
of the committee. Parties were heard. Five of the Jesuits
had the effrontery to declare that they had never passed any
censure, while all of them asserted that they had never pub-
lished it. In order to restore peace to the Church, the presi-
dent proposed that the Jesuits shorld pledge themselves, in the
presence of the Court, " to do nothing more for the future ;"
and addressing himself to their leader, M. Cornet, he asked his
concurrence. Cornet replied, " Sir, we pledge ourselves to make
good all that we promised to President Mole." Indignant at
the equivocation, the president replied, "Ha. Gentlemen, speak
plain French ; these loose words and general promises are not
discourses to be held in this company. The Sorbonne hath not
the repute of using equivocations" Unwilling to issue an in-
terdict, the president again proposed a mutual agreement.
u War," he said, uwas kindled both without and within the
empire : we had suffered famine, and there were still other
scourges that threatened us, and it was a thing of ill relish to
see division among the doctors." The Jansenists, however,
insisted on the interdict, and on the 5th of October the Parlia-
ment "enjoined and prohibited the parties from publishing the
said draught of censure; from agitating or bringing into ques-
tion the propositions contained therein, and writing and pub-
lishing any thing concerning them."

Though now under legal restraint, the Jesuits were as little
restrained by law as they had been by honor. They auda-
ciously sent to Rome the disowned and prohibited censure, as
a True Censure of the propositions issued by the Faculty of the
Sorbonne, and, as such, it was "brought, before the Pope in the
Assembly of the Holy Office, to be the subject of debate for his

16 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

Holiness and that tribunal." Three out ot the fire consulters
approved of the censure, and all the cardinals would have con-
curred, had not one of them, more upright than the rest, holdly
maintained, " that the censure, and not the proposition, was
heretical." Upon this the Pope exclaimed, u Beware of Car-
dinal N— — , who says that our consulters are heretics;" to
which the cardinal replied, "Excuse rne, blessed Father; I do
not say that my lords the consulters are heretics, but that their
censures are heretical. But still, it is true that they would be
heretics should they continue obstinately therein."

The intrigues of the Jesuits, and their repeated attempts tc
deceive and prejudice the Pope, rendered it necessary that
decision on the five propositions should be obtained from thi
highest authority. A letter, signed by eleven French bishops,
was accordingly addressed to his Holiness, requesting the es-
tablishment of a solemn congregation, at which the subject
should be discussed before the Pope pronounced judgment;
and M. St. Amour, and other four deputies, were sent to Rome
to carry out the views of the bishops. The Jesuits appointed
a similar deputation, and both parties arrived at Rome. The
activity of M. St. Amour annoyed the Jesuits, and they tried
every means to frighten him from Italy. Even Cardinal D'Este
intimated to him that his residence in Rome was one of real
danger; and a French ecclesiastic informed him, in secret, that
there was a plan to seize him at night and immure him in the
prison of the Inquisition. Notwithstanding these threats, the
heroic Jansenist stood firm at his post; and on the 10th of
July, 1651, he had an audience of the Pope. After stating that
the Jesuits in France had made sure of the Pope's opinion, his
Holiness replied, says M. St. Amour, u by showing me a cruci-
fix, which he said was his counsel in such affairs as these ; and
having heard what would be represented to him by such as
argued therein, he kneeled dowrt before that crucifix, to take
at the feet thereof his resolution according to the inspiration
given to him by the Holy Spirit, whose assistance was promised
"o him, and could not fail him."

On the 'Jlst of June, 1652, the Jansenist deputation had their
long-promised audience of Innocent X. The members addressed
his Holiness in succession, and brought before him Severn,
striking facts, within his own knowledge, which placed beyonc

DISCOVERIES OF PASCA.L. 47

a duubt the intrigues and calumnies of his opponents ; and there
was reason to believe that the Pope took a favorable view ot'
the cause. Advice, however, and even warnings, from kings
and bishops, overset the papal mind, and created doubts and
fears which an appeal to his crucifix seemed unable to remove.
The King of Poland urged the condemnation of the five propo-
sitions, and declared that he was '•'"more apprehensive in his do-
minions of the divisions which might arise about them than the
wars of the Tartars and Muscovites ;" and there is reason to be-
lieve that the French king and his tyrant minister rested their
own personal safety, as well as that of their kingdom, on the
condemnation of truths eternal and immutable. To such in-
fluences the Holy Father was constrained to yield ; and though
he honored the deputies with a grand audience on the 19th May,
1653, and listened for hours to their learned and unanswerable
appeals, yet on the 81st of May the bull of condemnation was
placarded in the streets, and copies sent to the French king and
bishops, without any communication even of the fact of its hav-
ing been passed being made to the deputation! Upon taking
leave of Innocent, the Jansenist deputies were received with a
degree of kindness which excited the greatest joy even in Rome.
Annoyed by this expression of opinion, the Jesuits solicited an
audience of the Pope, to request from him a declaration of his
dissatisfaction with his subjects. The application, however,
was in vain.

The feelings and conduct of the Pope are thus described,
in a dispatch from the French ambassador to the Secretary
of State:

" On Thursday last I told the Pope that the doctors who
bear the title of St. Augustine's defenders were desirous to kiss
his feet before their departure, being ready to return into France.
His Holiness answered me, that whatever business he might
have he would admit them to audience on Friday morning:
which he did, and caressed the doctors extremely, and told them
that he had not condemned the doctrine of St. Augustine or
St. Thomas, nor the point of grace effectual by itself, leaving
this part of the controversy in the same posture as Clement
VIII. and Paul V. had left it; but that as they themselves had
declared that the five propositions had three senses, one Cal-
rinistic, one Pelagian, and one true and Catholic, they ought tc

48 LIFK, GENIUS, AND

be pronounced erroneous and temerarious, inasmuch as in a cer-
tain manner and intent they were heretical."

Although the Jansenists yielded implicit obedience to the de-
cision of the Roman Pontiff, the Jesuits were restless and dis-
satisfied. Aided by the king and the government, they used
every means to annoy and oppress their adversaries. They de-
nounced the Jansenist leaders as deists ; they charged the depu-
tes with having circulated libels against the king; they ridiculed
ttiem in silly caricatures; they afterwards established an anti-
Jansenist test, with suitable penalties to enforce it ; and they
ejected from their offices the Professor of Divinity at Caen and
the Principal of the College of Montaigu. But this was not all.
The writings of Jansen — the object of all their hostility — had
not yet been condemned. To effect this, the Jesuits of Church
and State united their strength. Cardinal Mazarin even lent
his influence; and it was speedily decreed, in a muster of Pa-
risian doctors, that the condemned propositions were actually
contained in the Augustinus of Jansen!

In this emergency the indomitable Arnaud rushed to tLe
combat. In a vigorous letter, written in 1655, he declared that
the condemned propositions were not to be found in the writ-
ings of Jansen ; and he boldly announced his own orthodox
»pinions on the perplexing questions of grace and free-will.
The doctors of the Sorbonne were again in arms. Arnaud
••vas charged not only with heresy, but with disrespect to the
Homan See; and hence it became necessary that charges so
grave in themselves, and so serious in their consequences, should
be fully and fairly canvassed by the public.

Such was the state of this extraordinary controversy, when
Pascal became the champion of truth and of Port-Royal. Un-
der the signature of Louis de Mont.il te, he composed a series ot
letters,1 addressed to a friend in the country, containing ani-
madversions on the morals and policy of the Jesuits. The first
Df these letters was published on the 23d January, 1656, and
./hey were continued at intervals till the 24th March, 1657, when
he eighteenth and last letter made its appearance.8

1 The Letters appeared first with the title of Lettre* ecrile* par Loui* de 3/oi»
4ilfo, a un Provincial de se» amis, et aua: RR. PP. Jesuites, sttr la morale et la
PoHtique de c«« P&re».

* A nineteenth letter, dated 1st June, 1657, has been added in some mod«rt

DISCOVEKIES OF PASCAL. 49

Thefost of the Provincial Letters, as they are now called,
•s introduced with a notice of the proposed censure of Arnaud.
In a series of imaginary conversations with doctors and monks,
Pascal investigates, with much humor and elegance of style, the
meaning of the term proximate power (pouvoir prochairi), which
the Molinists had invented for the purpose of drawing down a
censure upon Arnaud. This letter produced a great sensation.
It roused the public, who had hitherto been indifferent to the
subject; but so active and zealous were the enemies of Arnaud,
that a week afterwards they succeeded, by a majority of votes,
in expelling him from the Faculty of Theology in the Sorbonne.1
The second letter, dated January 29, treats of the subject of
sufficient grace, which, according to the Jesuits, was of no avail
without efficacious grace — an inconsistency which the author
exposes in a strain of the happiest and most convincing raillery,
and which leads him to address to the Dominicans an eloquent
and glowing admonition. In the third and fourth letters, which
immediately followed the decision of the Sorbonne, he ridicules
with great effect the Dominicans, who seem on this occasion to
have abandoned the doctrine of St. Thomas, and he shows in
the clearest manner that the sentiments of Arnaud coincide
with those of the Fathers ; that the censure pronounced upon
him was as absurd as it was unjust; and that the heresy charged
against him was not in his writings, but in his person. Thus did
it appear that the proximate power of the Jesuits was that which
left man powerless ; and their sufficient grace that whicli sufficeth
not. In these four letters Pascal assumes the character of a
person not much versed in such controversies. He consults
various learned doctors, proposes doubts, and obtains solutions
of them, and in this way he makes the subject so plain that the
Jesuits and the Dominicans became the objects of universal
ridicule. u Pascal," says an eminent French critic, "explains
every question so clearly, that we are compelled out of gratitude
to agree with him." In the six following letters the Jesuits are
scourged with the most unmerciful severity, and yet with stripes

editions, on tbe subject of the proposed establishment of the Inquisition In
Frbure.

1 At this meeting, which was held in the 31st January, 1656, 206 members ol
«he Faculty were present. For M. Arnaud, there were 71 votes of doctors ;
against him, 80 ; and 40 votes of mendicant frinrs, — 15 members declining to vote
3

fiO LIKE, GENIUS, AND

so quietly and measuredly applied that the sound of the lash,
like that of the cricket or the grasshopper, scarcely affects our
ears. The writhing of the unseen culprit becomes almost vis-
ible; and we think we hear him, in words not expressed, ac-
knowledging the justice of his punishment.

Almost every religious order had its casuists, who decided
cases of conscience, and affixed as it were a numerical value to
human actions. Crimes became virtues when tested by the
intention of the criminal ; and thus did the casuist priests, with
the privileges of the confessional, become at once the arbiters
and the tyrants of conscience. The theological ethics of the
Jesuits abounded in those misleading principles, in which their
casuists were intrenched. Their doctrines of probdbalism, of
mental restriction, and of the direction of intention, were often
applied with singular subtilty and talent; but, in an age of
ignorance and superstition, the actual decisions of snch judges
as the Jesuits, administering such codes of casuistic law, must
have been, as they were, scandalous and revolting. Against
cases of this kind, carefully collected from their writings, Pas-
cal directs the artillery of his sarcasm. Their new system of
morality — their remiss and their rigid casuistry — their substitu-
tion of obscure authorities for that of the Fathers — their arti-
fices for evading the authority of the Gospel, the Councils, and
the Popes — the privileges of sinning, and even of killing, granted
to priests and friars — their corrupt maxims respecting judges— 7
their false worship of the Virgin Mary — their facilities for pro-
curing salvation while living in sin, are all exposed with «
severity of satire, a gayety of sentiment, an elegance of style,
and an exuberance of wit, which have interested all classes of
readers.

In the remaining eight letters the morals, the maxims, and
the calumnies of the Jesuits are again discussed; but, as if the
subject had become too grave for ridicule, and their crimes too
flagrant for satire, Pascal assails them with the severest reproof,
and in the most fervid eloquence. Abandoning his previous
tactics, he attacks the whole body of the Jesuits, and address-
ing his two last letters to Father Annat, the very confessor of
the king, who had charged the author with being a heretic am?
a Port-Royalist, he makes the following bold reply: "You feel
yourselves smitten by an invisible hand — a hand, however

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. '51

which makes your delinquencies visible to all ; and in vain do
you try to strike at me in the dark, through the persons of those
with whom you suppose me to be associated. I fear you not,
either on my own account or on that of any other, being bound
by no tie either to a community or to any individual whatso-
ever. All the influence which your society possesses can be of
no avail in my case. From this world I have nothing to hope,
nothing to dread, nothing to desire. Through the goodness of
God I have no need of any man's money or any man's patron-
age. Thus, father, I elude all your attempts to lay hold of
me. You may touch Port-Eoyal if you choose, but you shall
not touch me. You may turn people out of the Sorbonne, but
that will not turn me out of my domicile. You may hatch
plots against priests and doctors, but not against me, for I am
neither the one nor the other. And thus, father, you never
perhaps had to do, in the whole course of your experience, with
a person so completely beyond your reach, and, therefore, so
admirably qualified for dealing with your errors — one perfectly
free — one without engagement, entanglement, relationship, or
business of any kind — one, too, who is pretty well versed in
your maxims, and determined, as God shall give him light, to
discuss them, without permitting any earthly consideration to
arrest or slacken his endeavors."

The effect produced by the Provincial Letters far exceeded
the most sanguine expectations of the Port-Koyalists. Eead and
understood by the world, to whom Jansenism and Jesuitism
were subjects of indifference, they were devoured by all classes,
and the Jesuits became everywhere the subject of mirth and
ridicule. Even their friends at court enjoyed in secret the hu-
miliation of their spiritual tyrants, and the gay and profligate
society of the capital found the cheapest absolution, and indul-
gences, without price, in the moral law of the Jesuits. Thus
driven from the field as casuists and as divines, they had no place
of refuge in literature or science. The most distinguished wri-
ters and philosophers of the day, if not all Jansenists, were, at
least, none of them Jesuits. The shaft which struck them was
shot from a bow doubly strung, which genius and piety had
combined to bend, and though it was not barbed with upas, nor
guided to a vital part, it yet shook the seat of life, and, by a
sure though lingering process, brought its victim to the tomb.

52 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

After this blow, the Jesuits were unable to recover either
their station or their influence. The political power, indeed,
previously intrusted to them against Port-Royal, was now put
forth with new force, and wielded with unscrupulous malignity.
Anne of Austria, the Regent of France, and Cardinal Mazarin,
her unprincipled minister, were the guilty authors of this attack
upon Port-Royal. A troop of archers, aided by the police,
marched to its sacred groves. The masters and scholars were
ejected from its schools ; the recluses were banished from its
sanctuary, and an order of council was issued to eject every
scholar, postulant, and novice both from their Abbey-in-the-
Fields, and their residence in the capital. An event, however,
occurred as strange in its nature as it was powerful in its influ-
ence, which arrested the secular arm, and stayed for awhile
the fanatical vengeance of the Jesuits.

Among the scholars at Port-Royal, Marguerite Perier, the
neice of Pascal, was an object of peculiar interest. She was
eleven years of age, and had for three years been afflicted with
bfatula lachrymalig. The most celebrated surgeons in Paris
had, during six months, exhausted in vain all the resources of
their art. Her nose and cheeks were deformed with the most
loathsome sores. The bones had even become carious, her at-
tendants almost shrunk from her presence, and so desperate
was the case that the surgeons had decided on the application
of the cautery. Her father was summoned to witness the
operation, aud he had set out on his journey to be present on
the appointed day. Previous to this event, M. de la Potherie,
a priest resident in Paris, had obtained one of the thorns said
to be from our Saviour's crown, which, at the urgent request of
the virgins, had been sent for adoration to the different monas-
teries in Paris. The inhabitants of Port-Royal were naturally
anxious to show the same respect to the sacred relic ; and on
Friday, the 24th March, 1656, the nuns and scholars marched
through the church in solemn procession, and kissed the holy
thorn as they passed. Marguerite Perier had been advised to
apply her eye to the thorn after she had kissed it, and no sooner
nad she done this than the disease disappeared. Several of the
physicians and surgeons, who had been previously consulted,
were called to witness the cure. They could not believe their
eyes ; and so complete was the cure that they could scarcely

D1SCOVKRIES OF PASCAL. 53

flislingnish Mademoiselle Perier from her companions.1 This
extraordinary cure was at first kept secret by the ladies ol
Port-Royal, but it was soon made known in Paris by the medi-
cal attendants. The mind of the capital was agitated — the
Jesuits trembled, and their political agents paused in their deed
of persecution. The regent sent the king's surgeon to inquire
into the truth of the story, and when it was reported to her
to be true, she pondered over the event. All good Catholics
regarded the Miracle of the Thorn as an interposition of Provi-
dence to save the monastery ; and Anne of Austria, unable to
resist the general feeling, which she probably did not share,
recalled her archers from their work of sacrilege, and permitted
the saints and sages of Port-Royal to resume their intellectual
and pious labors.

The respite thus obtained for the condemned monastery dis-
concerted the plans of its relentless enemies. The Jesuits at
first threw doubts over the story of the Holy Thorn, and called
in question the testimony of those who had witnessed it ; and
when they found these attempts to be unavailing, they pub-
lished the most scandalous libels against the Port-Royalists.
In the Rdbat-joie des Jansenistes, published anonymously, but
written by Father Annat, the king's confessor, this holy slan-
derer, after trying to put down the story as untrue, admitted it
to be a real miracle, and maintained that God had allowed it to
be wrought amid a conclave of heretics, in order to prove that
Christ died for all men ! Pascal, who had seen with his own
eyes the disease, and had also witnessed its cure, could not but
view the event as miraculous; and, as a Roman Catholic, he
naturally regarded it as produced by the touch of the Holy

» "We have abridged this account from the third note of Nicole (Willelmns
Wendrockius) on the Sixteenth Provincial Letter. Nicole was then in Paris en-
oying the society of Pascal, his intimate friend. He went to Port-Royal, and
witnessed with his own eyes the fact of the cure, having been assured by Pascal
«nd the surgeons of the fact of the disease. " Turn ego Parisiis versabar externna,
nee mediocrem curn clarissimo viro D. Pascal omnibus Europ* mathematicis
notissimo usum contraxeram, propter illorum, in quibus aliqnando gravioribus
•atigatus acquiesco, studiorum societatem. Is erat istius pnellw avunculus : idem
et tanti miraculi testls omni exceptione major. Hnjns causa ipse qnoque cum
seteris Portum Eegium petii, commonstrari mihi pnellam curavl: at #icut turn
Mi integerrimct fidei viro, turn gpectatifttimi* mediate et ohii-urgis de morbc
tredideram, de sanitate mihi credidi."— Lud. Montalt. Lett. Prov., p. 4S9, Ed
t, Colon. 1665.

51 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

Thorn. He entered the lists, therefore, with Father Annal
and the Jesuits, and repels, in his sixteenth letter, the base
calumnies which they had circulated against his friends. The
following appeal to them is at once beautiful and eloquent :

" Cruel, cowardly persecutors! Must, then, the most retired
cloisters afford no retreat from your calumnies ? While these
consecrated virgins are employed, night and day, according to
their institution, in adoring Jesus Christ in the holy sacrament,
you cease not, night or day, to publish abroad that they do not
believe that he is either in the eucharist or even at the right
hand of his Father; and you are publicly excommunicating
them from the Church, at the very time when they are in secret
praying for the whole Church, and for you ! You blacken with
your slanders those who have neither ears to hear nor mouths
to answer you ! But Jesus Christ, in whom they are now hid-
den, not to appear till one day together with him, hears you,
and answers for them At the moment I am now writing, that
holy and terrible voice is heard which confounds nature and
consoles the Church. And I fear, fathers, that those who now
harden their hearts, and refuse with obstinacy to hear them,
while he speaks in the character of God, will one day be com-
pelled to hear him with terror, when he speaks to them in the
character of a Judge."

We are unwilling to enter into any discussion respecting the
apparently supernatural core of Mademoiselle Perier. As Pro-
testants, we reject the miracle — as men, we admit the fact.
Unwilling to believe that the Church of Christ was either to
be sustained or adorned by miraculous gifts, we cannot believe
that the occurrence of events which baffle human reason is
any proof of the purity of the Church with which they are
associated. We may believe that meteoric stones fall from the
»ky, when we see them whizzing across our path and dropping
warm at our feet; but we need not believe that they have
fallen from the moon, or formed part of a shattered planet.
Those who take away human life on circumstantial evidence,
or on direct testimony, must believe that an extraordinary, if
not an instantaneous cure, was performed on Mademoiselle
Perier, or rather took place on the day the procession passed
(he fancied relic ; but it would require more evidence than can
be produced, and that, too, of a very peculiar kind, to prove

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 55

that the cure was effected by the touch of a thorn, and that the
thorn employed had ever existed in our Saviour's crown.

But, whatever be our opinion of this event, there is no doubt
that the regent and her minister viewed it as divine. It para-
lyzed their vindictive arm ; and while they were the deposit-
aries of power, that arm was never again lifted against Port-
Riyal. The pious world were equally impressed with its
supernatural character. Crowds of devotees thronged to the
sacred scene. The Queen of Poland, the Princess Guirnenee —
the Dukes and Duchesses of Luynes, Liancourt, and Pont-
chateau — the Marquesses of Sevigne and Sable, annually re-
tired to it for instruction ; and the celebrated Duchess de Lon-
gueville, with the Prince and Princess de Conti, her broth ei
and sister, became worshippers at Port-Royal. About the same
time, -Madame de Montpensier, the niece of Louis XIII., paid a
visit to the Abbey, and carried back to the queen regent the
most favorable account of its principles and its inmates.1

These indications of prosperity, however, were but the fore-
shadows of a coming storm. The Jesuits viewed them with an
evil eye, and the popularity of Port-Royal spurred them on to
new acts of aggression. On the death of Cardinal Mazarin,
the young monarch, Louis XIV., yielded to the desires of the
Jesuits. Having refused to sign the anti-Jansenist formulary
of 1660, the novices and scholars were expelled from the
monastery ; the small schools of Port-Royal and the neighbor
hood were shut up; and, in consequence of a decree of tho
13th of April, 1661, a troop of horse appeared at the abbey,
and drove into prison or exile its higher functionaries. Arnaud
was banished. Singlin, the father confessor, was thrown into
the Bastille, where he died; and Angelique Arnaud, after a
bold remonstrance addressed to the queen, took leave of the
companions of her solitude, and closed a holy and a useful life,
strong in the faith which had so long sustained her, and ani-
mated with those hopes which affliction brightens, and death
embalms.

In the midst of these calamities, Pascal was engrossed with
trofound researches in geometry, an occupation well fitted to
serenity to a heart bleeding from the wounds of his beloved

1 if&moires de Mademoiselle de Montpenster, torn. HL, p. 810.

56 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

associates. He had long before renounced the study of the sci-
ences ; but during a violent attack of toothache, which deprived
him of sleep, the subject of the cycloid forced itself upon his
thoughts. Fennat, Roberval, and others, had trodden the same
ground before him ; but in less than eight days, and under
severe suffering, he discovered a general method of solving this
class of problems by the summation of certain series ; and as
there was only one step from this discovery to that of Fluxions.
Pascal might, with more leisure and better health, have won
from Newton and from Leibnitz the glory of that great in-
vention.

The Duke de Roannes, and other friends of Pascal, conceived
the idea of making this discovery subservient to the interests of
religion, in so far as it showed that a profound geometer might
be an humble Christian. With this view, in June, 1658, Pas-
cal, under the assumed name of Amos Dettonmlle, the anagram
of Louis de Montalte, offered prizes of forty and twenty pistoles
for the best determination of the area and the centre of gravity
of any segment of the cycloid, and the dimensions and centre
of gravity of solids, half and quarter solids, &c., which the same
segment would generate by revolving round an absciss or an
ordinate. Huygens, Slusius, Wren, and Richi transmitted par-
tial solutions. Wallis, and Lallouere, a Jesuit, were the only
real competitors; but neither of them succeeded. Dettonville
published his own solution in his Traite Generate de la Rou-
lette, which appeared in January, 1659 ; and though the whole
iffair was arranged by his friend Carcavi, a lawyer, as well as a
mathematician, yet Pascal was involved in a dispute with the
two disappointed candidates, who charged him with injustice.
Posterity, however, has rescued his name from this unmerited
reproach, while it has stamped with its highest praise the beauty
and originality of his researches.

The miraculous cure of Marguerite Perier, whom Pascal
dearly loved, and who had been his "spiritual daughter in bap-
tism," left a deep impression on his heart. He spoke of it as a
special manifestation of the Almighty, at a time "when faith
appeared to be extinguished in the hearts of the majority ot
mankind." His mind was therefore full of the subject of mira-
cles, and he resolved to dedicate the rest of his life to the com-
position of a great work on the Evidences of Religion. The

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 57

war, however, which he was at this time waging against the
Jesuits lasted three years, and the unexpected intrusion of the
geometry of the cycloid, upon the year following, interfered
with the execution of this great undertaking. He had do voted
to it, however, the last year in which he was permitted to labor,
and the various portions of it which he had written were col-
lected by his Port-Eoyal friends, and published, in 1670, under
the title of Pensees de M. Pascal sur la Religion, et sur q^uelques
autres sujets. This little work, which has been translated into
every European language, is pregnant with great and valuable
lessons, and has met with general admiration. Original and
striking views of divine truth pervade its pages, and fragments
of profound thought, and brilliant eloquence, and touching sen-
timent, everywhere remind us of its gifted author. Appealing
to minds of the highest order, his opinions on the solemn ques-
tions of faith and duty cannot fail to have a transcendent influ-
ence over hearts which studies and sufferings, like his own,
have enlightened and subdued.

The two last years of Pascal's life were marked with few
events excepting those of suffering and of duty ; but even these
few have not been recorded by his biographers. We and, how-
ever, in one of his letters to Fermat, some interesting informa-
tion respecting his health and movements, and also some im-
portant particulars relative to his religious and philosophical
opinions. In a letter dated July 25th, 1660, Fermat, then in
his 67th year, proposes to meet Pascal in September or Octo-
ber, at some place intermediate between Clermont and Thou-
ouse ; and in order to secure an interview, he adds that if
Pascal is unwilling to travel, he will thus expose himself to the
risk of seeing him at his own house, and of having in it two
invalids1 at the same time. To this proposal Pascal replied in
* beautiful letter, dated De Bienassis, 10th August, 1660, from
which the following is an extract :

u I will also say to you, that although you are the only one
in all Europe whom I regard as a great geometrician, no mere
geometrician would have had any attraction for me; but I
ancy there is so much intelligence and sincerity in your con-

1 Fermat died In 1C63, a few months after Pascal.

53 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

versation, that for this reason I have desired to meet you. For
to speak to you frankly of geometry, I find it the highest exer-
cise of the mind ; but at the same time I know it to be so use-
less that I make little difference between a man who is only a
geometrician and a skilful artisan. I call it, therefore, the most
beautiful occupation in the world ; but in fact it is only an oc-
cupation, and I have often said that it is good to make the
essay, but not the employment of our force; so that I would
not go two steps for geometry, and I am confident that you are
very much of my opinion. But at present there is this more-
over in me, that I am engaged in studies so different from
geometry, that I am scarcely conscious of its existence. 1
turned my attention to it a year or two since, for quite a par-
ticular reason, and my object having been accomplished, I may
never think of it again; besides that, my health is not yet firm
enough for it, for I am so feeble that I cannot walk without
a cane, nor hold myself on a horse ; neither can I ride but a
very short distance in a carriage, for which cause I have been
twenty-two days on the road from Paris here. The physicians
order me the waters of Bourbon during the month of Septem-
ber, and I have been engaged, so far as I can be engaged, for
two months to go thence into Poitou by water as far as Sau-
mur, to remain till Christmas with the Due de Roannes, gover-
nor of Poitou, who has for me sentiments above my worth.
But as I shall pass by Orleans in going to Saumur by the river,
if my health does not allow me to go further, I will go hence
to Paris. So you see, sir, what is the present state of iny life,
an account of which I am obliged to give you, in order to as-
sure you of the impossibility of accepting the honor which you
.leign to offer me, and which I desire with all my heart to be
able some day to acknowledge, either to you or your children,
to whom I am quite devoted, having a particular regard for
those who bear the name of a man most eminent.

"I am, etc., PASCAL."

The opinion which Pascal here expresses of geometry as a
s.ady — his fine allusion to his higher pursuits — his reference tc
the accident which turned his mind to the cycloid, and his ac-
sount of his own health and plans, have a peculiar interest.
We cannot, however, learn that he performed the journeys, anc

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 59

paid the visit to the Duke de Roannes, to which he alludes ; but
it is probable, from Madame Perier's silence, that he returned
from Bienassis to Paris, where new calamities awaited him.

Agitated with the occurrences at Port-Royal, his sister Jac-
queline, who had become sub-prioress of the abbey, sunk under
the conflict between expediency and conscience, and died on
the 4th October, 1661, the first victim, as she herself expressed
it, of the Formulary, — the anti-Jansenist test which the Jesuit
king had exacted from the nunneries. She is the author of
some excellent compositions in poetry, and had gained the
poetical prize given at Rouen, on the clay of the Conception.
Upon hearing of her death, Pascal said, with a deep sigh, " May
God give us grace to die like her."

His own last hour, so frequently, and almost miraculously
delayed, was now rapidly approaching. Madame Perier had
come to Paris with her family to watch over her beloved
brother, and from the nature of his habits she occupied a sepa-
rate dwelling. He had taken into his own house a poor man
with his wife and family, whom he generously supported, but
one of the sons having been seized with the small-pox, Pascal
thought it unsafe for Madame Perier to expose herself and her
children to infection ; and he therefore took up his residence
with her on the 19th June, 1662. He had no sooner made the
change than he was seized with an alarming illness, and on the
17th August it assumed such an aspect of immediate danger,
that he himself requested a consultation of the faculty. The
wise men pronounced "the illness to be no more than a megrim
in the head, joined with some vapors;" but Pascal judged other-
wise, and desired the Holy Communion to be dispensed to him
next morning. During the night a violent convulsion ensued,
and though he was given over as dead, he recovered so com-
pletely, as to be able to take the Sacrament. In answer to the
usual questions of the priest, respecting his belief in " the princi-
pal mysteries of the faith," he replied : " Yes, sir, I do verily be-
lieve them all from the bottom of my heart and soul ;" and his
last prayer was, " May the all-gracious God never forsalce me."
Another convulsion immediately supervened, and this great man
expired at one o'clock in the morning of the 19th August, 1662.
in the fortieth year of his age. Upon opening his body the
stomach and liver were found diseased, and the intestines in %

60 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

state of gangrene; and when his skull was laid open, it was
found to contain "an enormous quantity of brain, the substance
of which was very solid and condensed." His remains were
interred in his parish church of St. Etienne-du-Mont, where a
marble tablet, erected by Mons. Perier and his wife, preserves
a local memory of his talents and virtues.

It would be fruitless to delineate the character of a man in
whose life and writings the most exalted virtues have shone so
brightly and conspicuously. In no age of the Church, have the
graces of Faith, Hope, and Charity, been so finely blended, as
in Pascal's life. Genius threw round them its attractive halo,
and the crown of martyrdom hallowed the combination. Though
he was never immured in a dungeon, nor tied to the stake, nor
prostrate beneath the Jesuit's axe, his life was a prolonged mar-
tyrdom, and the Church of Christ is at this moment reaping the
fruits of his labors and his sufferings. There is, however, one
point of Pascal's character — the least obtrusive, though the
most attractive — which demands our notice — his humility, and
simplicity of mind. In referring to these qualities, a distin-
guished friend of his own beautifully remarked, " that the grace
of God makes itself known in men of great genius by little
things, and in men of little understanding by the greatest."
The little mind has no scale, no unit of length, by which it can
measure its awful distance from the Supreme Intelligence. The
philosopher can take for his unit, his own vast distance from the
unlettered peasant; and he finds it but a grain of sand in the
sea-beach of the globe — but an infinitesimal atom in the whole
matter of the universe.

As an elegant writer, Pascal has long occupied the highest
level ; and we can scarcely charge his countrymen with extrav-
agance, when they assert that his Provincial Letters have no
iicdel either among ancient or modern writers. Voltaire has
said that the best comedies of Moliere have not more wit than
the first Provincial Letter, and that Bossuet has nothing more
sublime than the last. The remarkable simplicity and elegance
which characterize the style of Pascal, were doubtless owing to
the great labor which he bestowed on his writings. His friend
Nicole, speaking in general of them, informs us that he was
guided by rules of composition which he had himself discovered ,
that he often spent twenty whole days on a single letter, and

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. Gl

that he wrote some of them seven times over, before they
attained the perfection in which they finally appeared.

We have anxiously sought for some authentic information
regarding the secrecy under which the Provincial Letters were
published, and the time when the author became generally
known. It is obvious, from the prefaces to the different editions
of Nicole's translations of them, that in 1660 they were not
ncknowledged by Pascal ; but, on the other hand, Madame
Perier informs us "that his manner in writing was so peculiar,
and so proper to him alone, that as soon as the Provincial
Letters were seen abroad in the world, it was as plainly seen
that they came from his hand, notwithstanding all the mighty
precautions he took to keep them concealed, even from his
most intimate friends." But whatever be the truth, it does
not appear that during the five years which elapsed between
the publication of the Letters and the death of Pascal, he was
either annoyed or persecuted as their author.

It would be improper to conclude an account of the life and
writings of Pascal, without adverting to the great lessons which
they so impressively convey. During the progress of the Ref-
ormation, the attention of Roman Catholics was necessarily
directed to the doctrine and discipline of their Church ; and a
body of learned ecclesiastics, and pious laymen, were gradually
led to acknowledge the corruptions which had disfigured it as a
missionary institution. The sound theology of Augustine, sanc-
tioned by holy writ, had given way to a creed palatable to the
secular mind ; and the new discipline which that creed tolerated,
held but a light and a loose rein over the will and actions of
men. The Church's most sacred rites were freely dispensed to
individuals who used them but as cloaks for sin, or as substi-
*utes for holiness. Jansen, as we have seen, stood forth, the
champion of the doctrine of grace ; and Arnaud, in his able
work, De la frequente Communion, exposed and lashed the in-
discriminate admission to the Lord's Table which characterized
the reign of the Jesuits. Round the standard of primitive
truth which was thus planted on the towers of Port-Royal,
men of high attainments and noble lineage speedily assembled ;
and a party was formed within the Catholic Church, which
•naintained its ancient faith, and struggled, under suffering aiid
persecution, to restore its ancient purity.

62 LIFE, GENIUS, AND

Without the support of any organized body, and opposed by
the wealth, and power, and vicious policy of the State, the
members of the Port-Royal band maintained the combat with
a boldness and success unexampled in the history of civiliza-
tion. Each individual wrought as if the result depended on
his single arm ; and though their weapons were various in
kind, and different in temper, they struck the same plague-spot
of corruption ; and if they did not stop its growth, they never
failed to deaden its vitality. But it was neither by their bril-
liant talents, nor by their unity of effort, that they thus kept
in check the intrigues and menaces of power. It was their
high moral courage, their fearless heroism, their trust in an
arm stronger than their own, that enabled them to endure and
to triumph. The men, indeed, who left father and mother for
their Master's sake — who abandoned lucrative professions, and
gave all they had to the treasury of the faithful, were not likely
to flinch from suffering, or quail before mortals like themselves.
When Nicole, the comrade of Arnaud in his hottest encounters,
desired one day to have some rest frotn his toils, Arnaud ex-
claimed, " You rest ! will you not have the whole of eternity for
rest .*" And when some of the gentler spirits of Port-Royal
were desirous of yielding some secondary point, as a measure
of expediency, Pascal unceasingly repeated to them words
which can never lose their meaning or their value: "You wish
to save Port-Royal. You can never save it ; hut you may he
traitors to truth."1"1

Two hundred years have passed away since these noble wit-
nesses pronounced and sealed their testimony. In that long
.interval of time empires have fallen, and races of kings dis-
appeared. Revolution has swept away time-hallowed institu-
tions, and even systems of faith have surrendered their most
Cherished errors ; but, amid all these changes, Providence has
left us a clue by which we can trace through the labyrinth of
its ways the inarch and the workings of those great principles
\\hich the Port-Royalists labored to establish. The persecu-
tion of the Jansenists proved the destruction of the Jesuits.
The Papal power, made contemptible by the exposure of its
"allibility and ignorance, lost its hold even over its most bigoted
votaries. The equality of man's rights, the dignity of his sta-
tion, and the claims of the poor — not for deeds of charity alone

DISCOVERIES OF PASCAL. 63

but for acts of justice — doctrines taught and practised by Pascal
and the Port-Royalists — contributed to foster those yearnings
after civil liberty which, when unchained in an evil hour from
religion, led to the annihilation of that royal house which per-
secuted the Jansenists and razed Port-Royal to the ground.

Should such times again occur, if they have not already oc-
curred, let us look to the Pascals and Arnauds of former days,
and let us be assured, as they were, that Truth will admit of
no compromise ; and that over the great questions of Faith,
Expediency must have no control. Let us read that lesson to
our children; let us show them it in practice; and when the
field of conflict is about to become their inheritance, we shall
leave it with the conviction that their labors, in imitation and
in aid of ours, will advance the cause of truth and righteous-
ness, and hasten the day when " tne tabernacle of God shall be
among men, and when they who overcome shall inherit all
things."

PASCAL

CONSIDERED AS A WHITER AND A MORALIST.

BY M. VILLEMAIN.

IN surveying the varieties of human knowledge, we percoi7e
two great divisions under which all the acquirements of the
intellect are comprised. In the one, mind is employed upon
matter ; in the other, upon itself. The one contains the whole
science of external objects, from the most common mechanism
to that of the heavens ; the sole object of the other is the heart
of man ; and its instruments are Ethics, Eloquence, and Poetry.

Does the same genius possess the power to master these two
opposite spheres of knowledge ? Or is their separation as in-
surmountable as their diversity is manifest? When physical
science was imperfect and new, it could not alone suffice for
the complete activity of a powerful mind ; besides, it needed
imagination, to cover its ignorance and errors. Pythagoras,
who gave the Greeks the science of numbers, taught Ethics in
harmonious verses ; and the divine Plato supported upon Geom-
etry his brilliant metaphysics. But when science had gath-
ered within her domain a multitude of observations and facts,
she was bound to retire within herself, and henceforth maintain
an independent existence. Thus by the progress of human
Knowledge began tlie divorce of science and letters; and our
increased knowledge has been divided, as an empire too vast is
separated into independent kingdoms.

There are reckoned men who would make an exception to
this law of human weakness ; and they, too, confirm it. If they
have embraced the extremes, they have not been able to carry
them to the same point. One of the two perfections is always
opposed to the other; and they are, when united, mediocre and
sublime. A man appeared, to give to the human mind two

66 PASCAL CONSIDERED AS

titles of glory at once ; but his first flights exhausted the forces
of nature, and he had no time to complete his work. Yet
what a spectacle is presented by the labors and attempts of
this man arrested in the midst of his task ! What monuments
are the unformed outgushings of his genius !

We here propose to bring together some reflections upon those
of Pascal's works that are foreign to the mathematical sciences.
Pascal wrote to one of the profounde*t geometricians of his
time : " I call geometry the most beautiful occupation in the
world ;* but, in fine, it is only an occupation ; and I have often
said that it is good for the trial, but not the employment of our
force." Without joining in this hard and perhaps capricious
anathema against a science so much admired in our times, it is
permitted to seek by preference the greatness of the human
mind in those monuments of lofty reason and inimitable elo-
quence, which speak to all centuries, and transmit to the future
the man of genius in his completeness. In the exact sciences,
the discovery is separated, thus to speak, from the discoverer ;
it is corrected, extended, perfected by other hands, and becomes
a simple link in the successive order of truths that must be dis-
covered by the patience of centuries ; but the writer who has
stamped great thoughts or generous sentiments with eloquence,
has done all at once, and remains immortal himself with his
works.

In reflecting upon that premature instinct which turned, from
infancy, the genius of Pascal towards geometry, and made
him discover the elements of the science which, without know-
ing it, he desired, it would be superfluous to inquire whether
the faculty that he first manifested was necessarily in him the
most natural and the highest. All talents suppose innate
germs ; but a multitude of external circumstances and transi-
tory impressions, a thousand hazards that we do not calculate
upon, may determine the development of the faculties of the
mind, in an order which does not suppose the pre-eminence of
one over another. The father of Pascal wished to occupy his
son with the study of letters ; but he was himself a passionate
geometrician, and he lived only for *his science. While deny-
ing it to his son, he promised it to him in the future, as a re-

» (Euvres de Patcal. vol. Hi

A WUITKR AND A MORALIST. 67

ward of his efforts; he told him that geometry was a science
for men. It is always seen, in less important cases, that chil-
dren imitate instead of obeying, that they repeat actions and
forget counsels, that, in fine, their curiosity especially seeks
what is denied them. Is it not probable that, in a rcind pro-
digiously active and penetrating like Pascal's, the eagerness to
know a secret and prohibited thing still served to excite the
mathematical talent? Once developed, this passion for the ex
act sciences, one of the most powerful over the minds possessed
by it, retained that ardent genius by the attraction of the dis-
coveries, the novelty of the experiments, the certainty of the
truths, and consumed with excessive labors the greatest portion
of that life so short, and so soon devoured.

But how could there come from the midst of these arid and
withering studies, the skilful and passionate orator, the creator
of French style? Our great writers have all been produced,
either by the sudden gush of a first and unique inspiration, or
by long patience in a single labor. Pascal is a sublime writer
on first quitting his geometrical books. In the eloquent pages
that occupied but a portion of the few years accorded to this
extraordinary man, you perceive neither the beginning nor the
progress of genius, — the limit is reached at the outset ; the
trace of steps does not appear.

Perhaps this singular phenomenon ought to be explained in
part by the very influence of the abstract studies that occupied
Pascal, at a period when such high knowledge, still destitute of
the perfection and the facility of method, imposed upon the
aiind the effort of a continued creation. All was originality in
a study incomplete and new. A sort of enthusiasm and ele-
vated imagination was attached to all the essays of science.
We can imagine how much more fruitful and inspiring must
have been the habit of such contemplations than the frivolous
labors to which literature had too often been confined under the
protection of Richelieu. Could the French genius and language
be happily developed by those writers, who sought in style only
style itself, and made the study of words a distinct science? In
order to find what makes men eloquent, it is necessary to seek
what exalts the mind. Ancient liberty created ancient eloquence.
Poetic imitation reproduced it in the verses of Corneille. But GUI
institutions left no place for it elsewhere than upon the stage

68 PASCAL CONSIDERED AS

When the mind cannot occupy itself with the great interests
of country and of liberty, when it is deprived, thus to speak, of
public existence, there still remain to it noble sources of inspi-
ration. These are the intimate emotions of the soul, lofty views
of nature, and the love of speculative truth. To these sublime
fountains Pascal went, and thence drew his eloquence. Good
taste, contempt of false ornaments find vain rhetoric, sprang,
for him, from the greatness of the objects with which he had
occupied his mind. Originality followed him from geometry
into letters, — he invented his language, as he had found the
principles of science, under an eternal law of fitness and truth.
Perhaps if he had received from nature a less vivid imagination,
he would have extinguished it forever in the coldness of ab-
stract studies. But a mind like his, far from yielding to geom-
etry, received from it that vigor of deduction and those irre-
sistible arguments that become the arms of his speech.

How much, too, must the mind of Pascal have been animated
by intercourse with those illustrious recluses, whom he was
destined to surpass and defend ! I know how easy it is to re-
fuse admiration for virtues that are no longer in use, for talents
that have left only a name. To-day the highest title of Port-
Royal is, that it was the school of Racine. Nicole, Hermant,
Sacy, are no longer read. The fame of Arnauld is a question, —
his quarrels appear ridiculous. Nevertheless, the most enlight-
ened minds of a polished century studied with admiration these
authors so much disdained ; and Louis XIV. directed his policy
and power against the firmness of a few theologians. Port-
Royal had, then, a real grandeur, attested by persecution as
well as by enthusiasm.

At the commencement of an epoch in which religion was
destined to be clothed with all the splendors of art and genius,
a few men of grave manners, of free and elevated minds, most
of them united by blood or the closest friendship, formed, far
from the world, a society wholly occupied with labor and medi-
tation. Studious lovers of antiquity, their writings bear its
manly and strong character. With more reason than elegance,
they nevertheless give the first model of good taste and sound
.iterature. They have known affairs and life; they have ad-
mitted into their bosoms men beaten by the storms of faction.
These pious recluses are the innocent but faithful friends of the

A WHITER AND A MORALIST. 6fl

ambitions coadjutor of Paris.1 Port-Royal received more than
one noble relic of the Fronde; and that independence at once
violent and frivolous, which had agitated the State without the
wisdom to reform it, came to seek an asylum in religion. There
was found nearly all united, like one of the tribes of antiquity,
the family of Arnaulds, astonishing by variety of talents and
uniform elevation of characters. If difference of manners ad-
mitted of such a singular parallel, we should call them the Appii
of Port-Royal, — all ardent, skilful, obstinate. They, too, like the
Romans, had to sustain one of those long enmities which in the
ancient republics made part of the heritage of families. An-
toine Arnnuld, a vehement antagonist of the Jesuits, in a famous
suit, had brought upon his numerous children the hatred of
that vindictive and powerful society, and had transmitted to
them the courage and the talent to brave it.

But, it may be said, of what importance are the five unin-
telligible propositions of Jansenius, and so many long and ster-
ile controversies? Such ready contempt would be very unphil-
osophical. Circumstances and forms change ; the occupations
of the human mind are renewed; but in all times, under differ-
ent names, there exists a conflict between arbitrary authority
and independence of thought, between those who would intro-
duce absolute submission into the domain of intelligence and
those who claim the natural and free exercise of reason: it is
the quarrel of Socrates and Anytus, of the Stoic philosophers
and the emperors, of Henri IV. and the League, of the Hol-
landers and Philip II. Speculative, religious, political, literary,
this controversy is modified, transformed, ennobled, or abased,
by a thousand chances, by a thousand accidents of civilization
or manners: but it always subsists; it pertains to the dignity
'tself of our nature — to that noble privilege which makes
thought in man the first and most precious possession that an-
rther can wish to invade, that he may be called upon to defend.

In this endless struggle the recluses of Port- Royal, while ap-
pearing to discuss only scholastic subtilties, represented the
liberty of conscience, the spirit of examination, the love of jus*
lice and truth. Their adversaries plead the opposite cause —
that of blind domination over minds and souls. Pascal was in

> Cardinal de Kets.

YO PASCAL CONSIDERED AS

dignant at the yoke which such doctrines imposed on reason.
His lofty genius refused to bend beneath this insolent usurpa-
tion of the noblest faculties of man vainly taking refuge in the
sanctuary of conscience and faith. He saw his virtuous frienda
devoting themselves with obstinate zeal to profound studies
upon the origin and monuments of religion ; he saw them re-
signed, solitary, humble with a true humility, afraid of finding
ambition in the priestly office, and preferring persecution, as in
the first days of Christianity. The society of the Jesuits, on
the contrary, was menacing, accredited, — distributed favor or
disgrace, and eagerly pursued with calumny and decrees of
exile a body of learned, religious, irreproachable men, whose
only crime was that of maintaining their own opinions and fol-
lowing their own conscience. Could the noble and pure soul
of Pascal remain indifferent at the sight of such a combat?

He had at ftrst approached Port-Royal, preoccupied with
the philosophy of Epictetus and the uncertainties of Montaigne.
The candor of the virtuous Sacy struck him with a new light.
The vast erudition, the indefatigable spirit of Arnauld ; the in-
sinuating reason, the judicious elegance, and the gentleness ot
Nicole, who seemed the Melancthon of that orthodox and mod-
erate reform ; the natural eloquence and imagination of Le-
maistre, agitated in every way that soul passionately in love with
truth. In his fruitful conversations with minds worthy of him,
Pascal showed the superiority of his intellect, whatever might
he the subject; and these men, whose memory was fed with
vast reading, seemed to find again in their most precious recol-
lections the thoughts that Pascal produced at the instant from
Jiimself, as if he had been destined to carry everywhere that
species of divination which, in childhood, he had exercised
upon geometry. The recluses were especially great theologians,
hut every thing that can interest the human mind — philosophy,
history, antiquity — became the subject of their conversations.
Arnauld was a profound geometrician, and that clearness, that
vigor of logic, that inflexibility of deduction which Pascal had
loved in geometry, seemed the common character of the lan-
guage, books, doctrines, and, if you will, of the errors of Port-
Royal. What ties must have united that society, natura.
ftmong lofty intellects, brought together by love of meditation
ind study! What fidelity, not of party, but of conviction and

A WHITER AND A MORALIST. 71

nitue, must have been cemented by that noble intercourse'
We can imagine how, from that time, the theological labors ol
the recluses became the exclusive study of Pascal, and how the
countless charms of his satirical genius — satirical by force of
reason — lent themselves so readily to reinvest with naturalness
and elegance the learned demonstrations with which the expe-
rience of his friends furnished him.

Thus the Provincial Letters were produced by the necessity
of appealing from the Sorbonne to the public, and of explaining
those subtile questions of grace that served as a pretext for the
persecution of Arnauld, the most illustrious supporter of Port-
Royal. Those letters appeared under a false name, almost
furtively ; they defended an illustrious man oppressed ; they
attacked an abuse of theological power in an age when religion
was the primary object of attention ; they were not aimless,
but responded to one of the most real interests of the time.
Brevity, clearness, an unknown elegance, a biting and natural
pleasantry, words that stuck to the memory, made them suc-
cessful and popular. Pascal so clearly explains the question,
that out of gratitude one is obliged to judge as he judges.
1 should admire the Provincial Letters less if they had not
been written before Moliere. Pascal has anticipated good
comedy. He introduces upon the stage several actors, — an in-
different person who receives all the confidences of anger and
passion, sincere party men, false party men more zealous than
others, sincere conciliators everywhere repelled, hypocrites
everywhere welcomed. It is a true comedy of manners, with
change of costume. But the scene becomes still more comic
when, reduced to two characters, it exhibits to us the naive
interpreter of casuists with an apparent disciple, who, some-
times by ingenious contradictions, sometimes by an ironical
docility, excites and favors the indiscreet vivacity of a ton pere.
Animated by such a listener, the Jesuit develops with a proud
confidence the maxims of his authors, measures the degree
of his admiration by that of their stupidity, and renders
probable by his praises what seems an improbable reproach.
The dialogue of the two interlocutors is greatly prolonged ; but
•he form assumed is so happy, so varied in the details, and
produces an illusion so natural, that it is impossible to grow
iveary of it. Plato, combating the subtil ties of the rhetori-

72 PASCAL CONSIDERED AS

cians, gives the model of this excellent species of satire. His
Euthydemus, who boasts of teaching virtue by an abridged
method, resembles a father Jesuit explaining devotion made
easy. But it must be confessed that, for the purposes of ridi-
cule, the casuists of Pascal are still better than the sophists
of Plato.

The subject of the Provincial Letters is therefore not — very
far from it — sterile and unfavorable, as some would willingly
suppose, out of admiration for the author's genius: not only
did Pascal know how to create, but he chose well. Certainly, of
all the aberrations of the mind, one of the most singular is that
of wishing to justify vice by virtue, of doing bad acts with good
motives, of continually falsifying ethics while protesting respect
for them, and, by force of distinctions, of even coming to
find in the laws of God the privilege of meritoriously injur-
ing men. Besides, nothing is more amusing than the contrast
between the severity of persons and the laxity of principles.
Such are the resources that presented themselves to Pascal, and
he made use of them with wonderful effect. In attributing to
his adversaries the formal and premeditated design of corrupt-
ing morals, he doubtless makes an exaggerated supposition ; but
he gives to all his attacks a point of unity from which they
derive vivacity and support. Moreover, can we affirm with
Voltaire1 that the whole book is false, inasmuch as no society
ever thought of establishing itself by destroying morals? Is
the moral instinct so invincible and determined that it could
not be reduced and perverted by an imposing authority ? What
man has never hesitated in regard to his duties, and has not
sometimes desired the privilege of being remiss without blame
and without remorse? This feebleness of our hearts sufficiently
explains the favor that a complaisant system of ethics may ob-
tain. Has not more than one celebrated writer propagated his
philosophy by his ethics, and corrupted in order to succeed?

We can conceive, while deploring such a scandal, that in a
religious, but unequally enlightened century, a society which as-
oired to the domination of consciences, and carried its empire
aito countries differing in manners, customs, national and
iomestic prejudices, may, through ambition, have softened the

> SUcle de Louts XIV., t. II.

A WRITER AND A MORALIST. .3

moral rule that it wished to make adopted by so many opposite
minds. You are tempted to doubt Pascal's veracity, while
reading in his letters that strange citation in which priests,
ministers of mildness and peace, sanctify duelling and authorize
homicide; but the author of those maxims is not only a Jesuit,
but a Spaniard, a Sicilian, of some country where revenge re-
mains hereditarily consecrated — where devotion, innate in the
manners of the inhabitants, could obtain every thing except
the sacrifice of passions like it indigenous and national.

Doubtless, the culpable casuists who flattered these different
prejudices of peoples, had altered the most beautiful character
of the Christian law — the sublime uniformity of its ethics, in-
dependent of places, times, and men. It was, therefore, a just
and salutary work undertaken by Pascal, that of sternly com-
bating the lax complaisance which degraded religion, and of
bringing into disrepute that strange jurisprudence which had,
thus to speak, introduced into the sublime truths of morals and
conscience subtilties of chicanery and crafty forms of proce-
dure. With what natural fire — with what pitiless irony —
with what humor worthy of the ancient comedy — did Pascal
fulfil this generous mission ! Have not the doctrines of proba-
bility and the regulation of motive become immortal by the
ridicule with which he clothed them? That art of pleasantry,
which the ancients called a part of eloquence — that mockery
and naive atticistn which Socrates made use of — that instruc-
tive and comic piquancy which Rabelais soiled with the cyni-
cism of his words — that inner and profound humor that animates
Moliere and is often found in Lesage— in fine, that perfection of
esprit, which is nothing else than a superior and lively reason, —
such is the imperishable merit of the first Provincial Letters.

When we regard the life of Pascal, so limited in its course,
so afflicted by suffering and the sadness inseparable from pro-
found studies — when we read those detached thoughts which
seem the product of the restlessness of a sublime spirit, we can
at first scarcely conceive of that superabundance of humor
with which this man floods the arid fields of scholasticism. Is
laughter, then, so near to sadness in those rare intellects which
regard human nature from a lofty point? We should be
tempted to believe it in reading Pascal, Shakspeare, and Mo-
liere. It has been said, in order to explain such an alliance,
4

74 PASCAL CONSIDERED AS

that the habil of observing inspires sadness. This sentiment
pertains rather to the elevation itself of the intellectual facul-
ties, because such minds feel more sensibly the limits and the
impotence of thought, and are saddened by their very .force,
even while they laugh or are indignant at the common weak-
ness.

Pascal had completed his first ten letters — Arnauld was de-
fended, avenged. His apologist had carried the war into the
camp of his enemies ; and the rapid, humorous, familiar expo-
sition of the erroneous principles of their doctors on moral
questions had amused the public, and struck the powerful
society with the plague of ridicule. Then it was that the dis-
cussion took a more serious turn — that Pascal changed, thus to
speak, his genius. The Jesuits, especially occupied with caus-
ing the writings of this dangerous opponent to be interdicted
and suppressed, nevertheless attempted to refute them; but,
with little art, little logic, like men disconcerted by the sur-
prise of an attack so bold. It must be avowed, moreover, that
the society had not then in its bosom the celebrated men who
have made it illustrious. Bourdaloue was unknown, and had
not yet learned his potent dialectics in Pascal himself. The
defenders of the society, feeble, unskilful, contumelious, and
unreadable, only served to rouse the genius of its terrible ad-
versary. It was in answering them, that, under this form of
simple letters, Pascal reached without effort the highest elo-
quence of logic and wrath. You have read a hundred times
the passage in which Pascal, after having described with mar-
vellous energy the long and strange war between violence and
truth — two powers, he says, which have no ascendency over
each other — nevertheless predicts the triumph of truth, because
it is eternal and powerful like God himself. Has Demosthenes,
Chrysostom, or Bossuet, inspired by the tribune, uttered any
thing stronger or more sublime than those words thrown in at
the end of a polemical letter ?

This grand eloquence is the natural tone of the last Provin-
cial Letters. Every thing in them is bitter, vehement, pas-
sionate. Those same questions with which Pascal had at first
played, which he had uo it were exhausted by pleasantry, he
resumes and renews with seriousness and anger, so as to make
his enemios look back with regret upon that railing style of

A WRITER AND A MORALIST. 75

which they had at first complained. Now he ulcerates and
tears open the first wounds of humiliated self-love. Those
odious doctrines concerning homicide, which he had almost in-
dulgently handled in only covering them with contempt, he
attacks corps d corps, with all the power of inexorable dialec-
tics, as a crime against State and Church, nature and piety.
His vehemence seems to increase in pursuing another offence,
too common in times of division and party — calumny, that
moral assassination of which his adversaries had made both
frequent use and naively apologized for; two things that cor-
rect but d» not redeem each other. In this controversy, Pascal
seems sometimes to approach a vehemence more injurious than
Christian. In repelling calumny, he is prodigal of invective.
His generous soul, profoundly indignant at the misfortune of
his friends, is no longer able to moderate his words. Strong in
his genius, in his resentment, in the mystery that still shielded
his name, he cries out, addressing himself to all his adversaries :
" You feel yourselves struck by an invisible hand ; you attempt
in vain to attack me in the person of those with whom you
believe me to be united. I fear you neither for myself nor for
any other. All the credit you may have is useless so far as I
am concerned. I hope nothing from the world ; I apprehend
nothing from it ; I wish nothing from it. I need, by the grace
of God, neither the wealth nor the authority of any one. Thus,
my fathers, I escape all your snares."

Need we be astonished that, in a position so elevated, and
the only one that was worthy of him, Pascal was carried away,
even to the emotions and the violent liberty of the ancient
tribune? The circumstances, the times, were greatly changed,
but the eloquence was the same.

Is the question concerning some great interest of patriotism
or giory ? No ; the question is concerning the defence of a few
humble nuns accused of heresy. But what imports the subject ?
Listen to the tone of the orator and the indignation of the
good man : " Cruel and base persecutors, must it be then that
the most retired cloisters are not asylums against your calum-
oies? etc. You publicly cut off from the Church these holy
rirgins, while they are praying in secret for you and the whole
Church. You calumniate those who have no ears to hear yon,
no mouth to reply to you.'1

76 PASCAL CONSIDERED AS

If Pascal, in his letters, has united all the secrets of the most
energetic and most passionate eloquence, some of his Thoughts
inform us that this talent was supported by meditation upon all
the resources of art, and by a very profound theory which he
invented for his own use. It is futile enough to read principles
upon taste written by men without genius. But when a great
writer explains some general ideas on the art of speech, he
necessarily adapts them to his own character, to the habits of
his owO mind ; he puts in them something of himself; and this
revelation is more instructive than the very principles of art.
Pascal, so profound a geometrician, had conceived, by the su-
periority of his reason, the use and limits of the scientific spirit
carried int: the arts. What he wrote on the spirit of geometry
and the spirit of taste is the completest refutation of the literary
paradoxes which Fontenelle, D'Alembert, and Condillac pub-
lished in the following century. Pascal, whose genius had no
prejudices, because it had no limits,1 fixes the character of pos-
itive sciences and that of letters, without being arrested through
fear of taking something from himself, in limiting the dominion
of such or such a faculty, and as it were sure of finding his
place iii all the departments of human intelligence. Pascal, in
fact, combined in the highest degree the two extreme powers
of thought — reasoning and imagination. His life, his character,
his works, show this alliance ; and it is found in a marked de-
gree in the greatest work to which his genius was directed.
No one, in the same century, received perhaps, with a more
ardent and sincere enthusiasm, the truths of Christianity ; but
the habit of reasoning, breaking through his enthusiasm, still
agitated him with the torments of doubt. Can we otherwise
explain that forecast which revealed to him so many objections
little known to his age, and inspired him with the thought of
fortifying ami defending what no one had yet attacked? The
illustrious contemporaries of Pascal, filled with a conviction not
.ess pure, but more peaceable, limited themselves to developing
the consequences of a religion whose principles encountered no
advorsaries, — they raised the roof of the temple without fearing
that any hand might be bold enough to undermine its columns,

* Villemain may here seem somewhat extravagant In his praise, but even 8»
W. Hamilton has called Pascal a " "I'rscle of universal genins."

A WRITER AND A MORALIST. 77

Pascal alone, warned of peril by his own experience, meditated
a work in which he hoped to leave unanswered none of the
doubts of skepticism which this great genius had, thus to speak,
tried in every sense upon himself. The hand of the architect
is still entirely visible in the ruins of that monument com-
menced. But who would dare to reconstruct it 'in idea, and
calculate the combination of its scattered and formless parts ?

In the sands of Egypt we discover superb porticos that
no longer lead to a temple which the ages have destroyed,
vast debris, remains of an immense city, and, upon the fallen
capitals, antique paintings, whose dazzling colors will nevsr
pass away, which preserve their frail immortality in the midst
of these ancient ruins : such appear the Thoughts of Pascal —
mutilated relics of his great work.

It is known that he began it, already mortally infected with
that mournful languor which was so soon to consume his life.
Having upon the earth no other action than that of the intel-
lect, he continued it until he drew his last breath. Such, how-
ever, was the intensity of his ills, that some other preoccupation
than that of ethical truths became necessary to him. Mora
than once, we are told by the historians of his life, he resumed
with ardor the most laborious meditations of geometry, and
gave himself wholly up to them, in order to distract physical
pains. Was it not rather against other pains that he sought
such a remedy? Did he not find in them repose from the dis-
turbed activity of his soul too much assailed by thoughts?

In fact, consider this sublime intellect, captive in a miserable
body, fatigued by so many prodigious efforts, and continually
finding before it all those great problems of human destiny,
that cannot be resolved, like those of science :

" I know not who has put me into the world, nor what the
world is, nor what I am myself. I am in terrible ignorance of
all things. I know not what is my body, what my senses, what
my soul, — and that very part of me, which thinks what I am
saying, which reflects upon every thing, and upon itself, no more
knows itself than the rest."

This terrible ignorance, which Pascal retraces with too much
tnergy not to have suffered from it, was the enemy whose yoke,
nore overwhelming than faitn, he labored to shake off. The
Mime uncertainties had agitated the ancient philosophers, had

78 PASCAL CONSIDERED AS

sometimes troubled them even to despair. This torment of the
loftiest intellects had returned with increased energy in all the
great renewals of civilization, at the moment when men, after
having journeyed a long time supported by the old beliefs, feel
them escaping, equally impotent to dispense with them, or to
make use of them. Thus, towards the last centuries of the
Sn.pire, when polytheism was falling on every hand, and the
Jast disciples of Plato were in vain endeavoring to create a
faith, and to re-establish a worship by the force of reason, the
most eloquent of these philosophers, Porphyry, is represented
to us in a melancholy that reaches delirium, ready to commit
suicide, in order to escape from the torture of doubt. Thus, with
some of those speculative Germans who have worked upon the
ruins accumulated by a century of skepticism, madness seems
sometimes born from the too habitual and too ardent contem-
plation of the great mysteries of human existence. Doubt
turned in every direction, and, everywhere sterile, pushes on
these eager minds towards a sort of mystic theurgy ; as if to
believe were a repose necessary to the soul, as if the illusions
of enthusiasm were the first good for it after truth.

Pascal, whose superiority of genius had made him traverse
in advance the whole field of disquietudes that the human
mind can experience, in a civilization of several centuries, —
Pascal, instructed in all by the conflict to which he had aban-
doned the powers of his soul, threw himself into the arms of
Christian faith. It alone explained to him the origin of human
life, the greatness and the misery of man. But what restless
efforts in order to arrive at this repose! "In regarding," he
says, " the whole mute world, and man without light aban-
doned to himself, and as it were strayed into this corner of the
universe, without knowing who has placed him here, what he
has come to do here, and what he will become in dying, I am
frightened, like a man who should be borne sleeping into a
desert island, and should awake without knowing where he is.
I see other persons about me, of a nature similar to my own.
I ask them whether they are better instructed than I, and they
tell me no, — and thereupon these unhappy wanderers (egares),
having looked about them, and having seen some pleasing ob-
jects, give themselves up to them, and become attached tc
them. As for me, I have not been able to stop there, nor to

A WRITER AND A MORALIST. 79

be at rest in the society of these beings similar to myself, un-
happy and powerless like myself."

Do we not feel, in these words, all the suffering, all the labor
of this great genius, to find the truth ? Can we now be sur-
prised at the depth of sadness and eloquence that animates
under his pen a few metaphysical Thoughts thrown out at
hazard? What are all the interests of earth, what are all
passions, in comparison with that great interest of the spiritual
being searching after itself? In an intellect that sees every
thing, the combat against doubt is the greatest effort of human
thought. Pascal himself sometimes succumbs to it, — he seeka
strange aids against so great a peril. You are astonished that
he once tosses up (mette d eroix ou pile) to determine the ex-
istence of God and the immortality of the soul, and settles his
conviction by a calculus of probability. You remember how
Rousseau, more feeble and more capricious, made his hope ol
eternal salvation depend upon the throwing of a stone. Herein
must be recognized the impotence, and, thus to speak, the de-
spair of thought, after long efforts to penetrate the incompre-
hensible. It was the torment of Pascal, a torment so much
the greater, as it was proportioned to his genius. A positive
religion could alone emancipate and comfort him. It gave him
some security, in subjecting him to the power of belief. "When
we read that Pascal carried under his garments a symbol formed
of mystic words, a species of amulet, we feel that his power-
ful intellect had recoiled even to such superstitious practices, in
order to flee farther from a terrific uncertainty. Herein was
his terror. The imaginary precipice which, after a sad acci-
dent, the enfeebled senses of Pascal believed they saw opening
beneath his steps, was a faint image of this abyss of doubt that
internally terrified his soul.

Thus passed away the too-brief life of this great man. At
first he sought to emancipate human reason, — he reclaimed the
independence of thought and the authority of conscience ; then
he consumed himself with efforts to construct dykes and barri-
ers against the limitless invasion of skepticism. This powerful
and inflexible mind embraces with a profound conviction, as a
safeguard, the dogmas of Christianity, and gives them, by his
submission, perhaps the greatest of human testimonies. But if
kite conviction is entire, the demonstration is imperfect, the

80 PASCAL CONSIDERED AS

proofs are not united, the reasoning is not conclusive : there re-
main some indications of the struggle through which Pascal had
passed, and extraordinary marks of his force, rather than a per-
fect monument of his victory. Be they what they may, these
remains exist to astonish frivolous Pyrrhonism, to put it in
doubt of itself, and to afford the learned and wise a subject ol
long meditation.

It has been said that Pascal did not speak to the heart, that
his religion had the appearance of a yoke imposed, rather than
of a consolation promised. Vincent de Paul and Fenelon would
doubtless have obtained more conversions than Pascal. We do
not feel in him that tenderness of soul, that affection for men
which the Gospel breathes, which constitutes the power of the
New Law. He always profoundly interests, — he is so far from
being a declaimer and so true ! His bitter words against human
nature are not invectives; they are cries of grief concerning
himself. We are struck with a sort of sad respect, when we
«ee the internal ill of this sublime intellect. His misanthropy
seems an expiation of his genius, — he is himself more humiliated
than exalted by it. He is not like the Stoic of antiquity, an
impassive contemplater of our miseries, — he bears them all in
himself: "But," he says, "in spite of all these miseries that
touch us, that hold us by the throat, we have an irrepressible
instinct that supports us." This instinct of spiritualism opposed
to our mortal weakness, this contrast of greatness and nothing-
ness, alone fills Pascal's sublimest chapters on the nature of
man. It inspires him with emotions of an incomparable elo-
quence, and thoughts of fearful depth. We are astonished to
see him descend from such high metaphysics to truths of obser-
vation, to seize the minutest secrets of the heart, and penetrate
the whole nature of man with a vast and sad regard.

Pascal does not, like la Bruyere, describe and portray, — but
he seizes and expresses the principle of human actions. He
writes the history of the race, not that of the individual. Judg-
ing the things of earth with a liberty and a disinterestedness
wholly philosophic, he often arrives by a very different route to
the same end at which the boldest innovators arrive, — but he
does not stop there; he sees beyond. Sometimes he seems to
disturb the fundamental principles of society, of property, of
justice; but soon he strengthens them by a higher thought

A WHITER AND A MORALIST. 81

He is sublime by good sense as well as by genius. His style
bears in itself the impress of these two characters. Nowhere
will you find more boldness and simplicity, more grandeur and
naturalness, more enthusiasm and familiarity. A celebrated
writer has remarked that he is perhaps the only original genius
that taste has almost never the right to blame, and this is true ;
but we do not think of it while reading him.1

We here add Pascal's "Profession of Faith," which was ft and in his hand-
writing after his death.— ED.

" I love poverty, because Jesus Christ loved it. I love property, because it
affords the means of assisting the wrettbed. I keep faith with all. I do not ren-
der evil to those who injure me; but I wish them a condition like mine, in which
neither evil nor good is received on the part of man. I try to be just, true, sincere
and faithful to all men ; and I have a tenderness of heart for those with whom
God has closely united me; and whether I am alone, or in the sight of men, I per-
form all my actions as in the sight of God who is to judge them, and to whom 1
have devoted them all.

" These are my convictions ; and I bless every day of my life my Redeemer who
has inspired me with them, and who, of a man full of weakenss, wretchedness,
concupiscence, pride, and ambition, has made a man exempt from all these evila
by the force of his grace, to which all the glory is due, for in myself are onlv
wretchedness and error."

4°

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS

^»Y THE TRANSLATOR.

THE Church of Rome, notwithstanding her pretensions to
infallibility, has been fully as prolific in theological contro-
versy and intestine discord as any of the Reformed Churches.
She has contrived, indeed, with singular policy, to preserve,
amidst all her variations, the semblance of unity. Protest-
anism, like the primitive Church, suffered its dissentients to
fly off into hostile or independent communions. The Papacy,
on the contrary, has managed to retain hers within the out-
ward pale of her fellowship, by the institution of various
religious orders, which have served as safety-valves for exu-
berant zeal, and which, though often hostile to each other,
have remained attached to the mother Church, and even
proved her most efficient supporters. Still, at different times,
storms have arisen within the Romish Church, which could
be quelled neither by the infallibility of popes nor the author-

ty of councils. It is doubtful if religious controversy ever
raged with so much violence in the Reformed Church, as it
did between the Thomists and the Scotists, the Dominicans

nd Franciscans, the Jesuits and the Jansenists, of the Church
of Rome.

Uninviting as they may now appear, the disputes about
grace, in which the last mentioned parties were involved, gave
occasion to the Provincial Letters. The origin of these dis
putes must be traced as far back ns the days of Augustine

84 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

and the Pelagian controversy of the fifth century. The motto
of Pelagius was free-will ; that of Augustine was efficacious

o o

grace. The former held that, notwithstanding the fait, the
human will was perfectly free to choose at any time between
good and evil ; the latter, that in consequence of the fall,
the will is in a state of moral bondage, from which it can
only be freed by divine grace. With the British monk,
election is suspended on the decision of man's will ; humau
nature is still as pure as it came originally from the hands of
the Creator : Christ died equally for all men ; and, as the
result of his death, a general grace is granted to all mankind,
which any may comply with, but which all may finally for-
feit. With the African bishop, election is absolute — we are
predestinated, not from foreseen holiness, but that we might
be holy ;' all men are lying under the guilt or penal obliga-
tion of the first sin, and in a state of spiritual helplessness and
corruption ; the sacrifice of Christ was, in point of destina-
tion, offered for the elect, though, in point of exhibition, it is
offered to all ; and the saints obtain the gift of perseverance
in holiness to the end.9

Pelagius, whose real name was Morgan, and who is sup-
posed to have been a Welshman, belonged to that numerous
class of thinkers, who, from their peculiar idiosyncrasy, are
apt to start at the sovereignty of divine grace, developed
in the plan of redemption, as if it struck at once at the equity
of God and the responsibility of man. He is said to have
betrayed his heretical leanings, for the first time, by publicly
expressing his disapprobation of a sentiment of Augustine,
which he heard quoted by a bishop : " Da quod jubes, ef.
jule quod vis — Give, Lord, what thou biddest, and bid what
thou wilt." It would be easy to show that, in recoiling from
the odious picture of the orthodox doctrine, drawn by his
awn fancy, he fell into the very consequences which he was
»o eager to avoid. The deity of Pelagius being subjected

1 Non quia per nos sancti et immaculati futuri essemus, sed elegi
pnedestinavitque ut essemus, (De Praedest., Aug. Op., torn. x. 815.)
" De dono Persever. (Ih., 822. 1

AUGUSTINE AND PELAOIU8. 85

to the changeable will of the creature, all things were left to
the direction of blind chance or unthinking destiny ; while
man, being represented as created with concupiscence, to
account for his aberrations from rectitude — in other words,
with a constitution in which the seeds of evil were implanted
— the authorship of sin was ascribed, directly and primarily,
to the Creator.1

Augustine was a powerful but unsteady writer, and has
expressed himself so inconsistently as to have divided the
opinions of the Latin Church, where he was recognized as a
standard, canonized as a saint, and revered under the title
of " The Doctor of Grace." On the great doctrine of salva-
tion by grace, he is scriptural and evangelical ; and hence he
has been frequently quoted with admiration by our Reformed
divines, partly to evince the declension of Rome from the
faith of the earlier fathers, partly from that veneration for
antiquity, which induces us to bestow more notice on the
ivy-mantled ruin, than on the more graceful and commodious
modern edifice in its vicinity. When arguing against Pelagi-
anism, Augustine is strong in the panoply of Scripture ; when
developing his own system, he fails to do justice either to
Scripture or to himself. Loud, and even fierce, for the entire
corruption of human nature, he spoils all by admitting the
ubsurd dogma of baptismal regeneration. Chivalrous in the
defence of grace, as opposed to free-will, he virtually aban-
dons the field to the enemy, by teaching that we are justified
by our works of evangelical obedience, and that the faith
which justifies includes in its nature all the offices of Christian
; harity.

During the dark ages, the Church of Rome, professing the
highest veneration for St. Augustine, had ceased to hold the
Augustinian theology. The Dominicans, indeed, yielded a
vague allegiance to it, by adhering to the views of Thomas
Aquinas, " the angelic doctor" of the schools, from whom
they were termed Thomists ; while the Franciscans, who op-
posed them, under the auspices of Duns Scotus, from whom

* Neaivlor, RiM. ll^prts.. iii. 94 , Leyder.ker. dc Jansen. Dogm.. 4!2

86 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

they were termed Scotists, leaned to the views of Pelagius
The Scotists, like the modern advocates of free-will, inveighed
against their opponents as fatalists, and charged them with
making God the author of sin ; the Thomists, again, retorted
on the Scotists, by accusing them of annihilating the grace
of God. But the doctrines of grace had sunk out of view,
under a mass of penances, oblations, and intercessions, founded
on the assumption of human merit, and on that very confu-
sion of the forensic change in justification with the moral
change in sanctification, in which Augustine had unhappily
led the way. At length the Reformation appeared ; and as
both Luther and Calvin appealed to the authority of Augus-
tine, when treating of grace and free-will, the Romish divines,
in their zeal against the Reformers, became still more deci-
dedly Pelagian. In the Council of Trent, the admirers of
Augustine durst hardly show themselves ; the Jesuits carried
everything before them ; and the anathemas of that synod,
which were aimed at Calvin fully as much as Luther, though
they professed to condemn only the less guarded statements
of the German reformer, were all in favor of Pelagius.

The controversy was revived in the Latin Church, about
the close of the sixteenth century, both in the Low Countries
and in Spain. In 1588, Lewis Molina, a Spanish Jesuit,
published lectures on " The Concord of Grace and Free-
Will ;" and this work, filled with the jargon of the schools,
gave rise to disputes which continued to agitate the Church
during the whole of the succeeding century. Molina con-
ceived that he had discovered a method of reconciling the
jivine purposes with the freedom of the human will, which
would settle the question forever. According to his theory,
God not only foresaw from eternity all things possible, by a
foresight of intelligence, and all things future by a foresight
of vision ; but by another kind of foresight, intermediate be-
tween these two, which he termed scientia media, or middle
Knowledge, he foresaw what' might have happened under
certain circumstances or conditions, though it never may take
olace. All men, according to Molina, are favored with a

MOLINA. 87

general grace, sufficient to work out their salvation, if they
choose to improve it ; but when God designs to convert a
sinner, he vouchsafes that measure of grace which he fore-
sees, according to the middle knowledge, or in all the cir-
cumstances of the case, the person will comply with. The
honor of this discovery was disputed by another Jesuit, Peter
Fonseca, who declared that the very same thing had burst
upon his mind with all the force of inspiration, when lecturing
on the subject some years before.'

Abstruse as these questions may appear, they threatened
a serious rupture in the Romish Church. The Molinists were
summoned to Rome in 1598, to answer the charges of the
Dominicans ; and after some years of deliberation, Pope
Clement VIII. decided against Molina. The Jesuits, how
ever, alarmed for the credit of their order, never rested till
they prevailed on the old pontiff to re-examine the matter ;
and in 1602, he appointed a grand council of cardinals, bish-
ops, and divines, who convened for discussion no less than
seventy-eight times. This council was called Congregatio de
Auxiliis, or council on the aids of grace. Its records being
kept secret, the result of their collective wisdom was not
known with certainty, and has been lost to the world.8 The
probability is, that like Milton's " grand infernal peers," who
reasoned high on similar points,

" They found no end, in wandering mazes lost."

Those who appealed to them for the settlement of the ques-
tion, had too much reason to say, as the man in Terence does
»o his lawyers — "Fecistis probe ; incertior sum multo quant

But this interminable dispute was destined to assume a
more popular form, and lead to more practical results. In

3 The question of the middle knowledge is learnedly handled by
Voetius (Disp. Theol., i. 264). by Hoornbeck (Socin. Confut), and
other Protestant divines who have shown it to be untenable, useless,
^id fraught with absurdity.

a Dupin Reel. Hist.. 17th cent. 1-14.

" Well done, gentlemen ; you have lef me more in the dark tha»
tver."

88 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

1604, two young men entered, as fellow-students, the uni-
versity of Louvain, which had been distinguished for its hos-
tility to Molinism. Widely differing in natural temperament
as well as outward rank, Cornelius Jansen, who was afterwards
bishop of Ypres, and Jolm Duverger de Hauranne, afterwards
known as the Abbe de St. Cyran, formed an acquaintance
which soon ripened into friendship. They began to study
together the works of Augustine, and to compare them with
the Scriptures. The immediate result was, an agreement in
opinion that the ancient father was in the right, and that the
Jesuits, and other followers of Molina, were in the wrong.
This was followed by an ardent desire to revive the doctrines
of their favorite doctor — a task which each of them prosecuted
in the way most suited to his respective character.

Jansen, or Jansenius, as he is often called,1 was descended
of humble parentage, and born October 28, 1585, in a village
near Leerdam, in Holland. By his friends he is extolled for
his penetrating genius, tenacious memory, magnanimity, and
piety. Taciturn and contemplative in his habits, he was
frequently overheard, when taking his solitary walks in the
garden of the monastery, to exclaim: "0 verilanf veritasf
— 0 truth ! truth !" Keen in controversy, ascetic in devo-
tion, and rigid in his Catholicism, his antipathies were about
equally divided between heretics and Jesuits. Towards the
Protestants, his acrimony was probably augmented by the
consciousness of having embraced views which might expose
himself to the suspicion of heresy ; or, still more probably,
\>y that uneasy feeling with which we cannot help regarding
those who, holding the same doctrinal views with ourselves,
may have made a more decided and consistent profession of
them. The first supposition derives countenance from the
private correspondence between him and his friend St. Cyran,
which shows some dread of persecution ;f the second is ccn-

1 He was the son of a poor artisan, whose name was Jan. or John
Ottho ; hence Jansen, corresponding to our Johnson, which was Latin-
zed into Jansenius.

8 Petitot, Collect, des Memoires, Notice sur Port-Royal, torn, xxxiii.

THE JESUITS. 89

firmed by his acknowledged writings. He speaks of Protes-
tants as uo better than Turks, and gives it as his opinion that
" they had much more reason to congratulate themselves on
the mercy of princes, than to complain of their severities,
which, as the vilest of heretics, they richly deserved."1 His
controversy with the learned Gilbert Voet led the latter to
publish his Desperata Causa Papatus, one of the best expo-
sures of the weaknesses of Popery. When to this we add
that the Calvinistic synod of Dort, in 1618, had condemned
Arminius and the Dutch Remonstrants as having fallen into
the errors of Pelagius and Molina, the position of Jansen
became still more complicated. Of Arminius he could not
approve, without condemning Augustine ; with the Protes-
tant synod he could not agree, unless he chose to be de-
nounced as a Calvinist.

But the natural enemies of Jansen were, without doubt, the
Jesuits. To the history of this Society we can only now ad-
vert in a very cursory manner. It may appear surprising
that an order so powerful and politic should have owed its
origin to such a person as Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish soldier :
and that a wound in the leg, which this hidalgo received at
the battle of Pampeluna, should have issued in his becoming
the founder of a Society which has embroiled the world and
the Church. But in fact, Loyola, though the originator of
the sect, is not entitled to the honor, or rather the disgrace,
of organizing its constitution. This must be assigned to Lay-
nez and Aquaviva, the two generals who succeeded him —
men as superior to the founder of the Society in talents as he
excelled them in enthusiasm. Ignatius owed his success to
circumstances. While he was watching his arms as the
fenight-errant of the Virgin, in her chapel at Montserrat, or

J. 19. This author's attempt to fix the charge of a conspiracy between
ansen and St. Cyran to overturn the Church, is a piece of specia'
pleading, bearing on its face its own refutation.

1 The followers of Jansen were not more charitable than he in their
udgments of the Reformed, and showed an equal zeal with the Jesuits
to persecute them, when they had it in their power. (Berioit. Hist de
Edit de Nantes, iii. 200.)

90 HISTORICAL INTRODCC.'IOX.

squatting within his cell iu a state of body too noisome for
human contact, and of mind verging on insanity, Luther was
making Germany ring with the first trumpet-notes of the Ref-
ormation. The monasteries, in which ignorance had so long
slumbered in the lap of superstition, were awakened ; but
tlieir inmates were totally unfit for doing battle on the new
field of strife that had opened around them. Unwittingly, in
the heat of his fanaticism, the illiterate Loyola suggested a
line of policy which, matured by wiser heads, proved more
adapted to the times. Bred in the court and the camp, he
contrived to combine the finesse of the one, and the discipline
of the other, with the sanctity of a religious community ; and
proposed that, instead of the lazy routine of monastic life,
his followers should actively devote themselves to the educa-
tion of youth, the conversion of the heathen, and the sup-
pression of heresy. Such a proposal, backed by a vow of
devotion to the Holy See, commended itself to the pope so
highly that, in 1540, he confirmed the institution by a bull,
granted it ample privileges, and appointed Loyola to be its
first general. In less than a century, this sect, which as-
sumed to itself, with singular arrogance, the name of " The
Society of Jesus," rose to be the most enterprising and for-
midable order in the Romish communion.

Never was the name of the blessed Jesus more grossly
prostituted than when applied to a Society which is certainly
the very opposite, in spirit and character, to Him who was
"meek and lowly," "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate
from sinners." The Jesuits may be said to have invented
for their own peculiar use, an entirely new system of ethics.
In place of the divine law, they prescribed, as. the rule of
t.ieir conduct, a " blind obedience" to the will of their supe-
riors, whom they are bound to recognize as " standing in the
place of God," and in fulfilling whose orders they are to have
DO more will of ..heir own " than a corpse, or an old man's
-taff." The glory of God they identify with the aggrandize-
ment of their Society; and holding that "the end sanctifies
die means," they scruole at no means, foul or fair, which t.hov

THE JESUITS. 91

Conceive may advance such an end.1 The supreme power is
rested in the general, who is not responsible to any other au-
thority, civil or ecclesiastical. A system of mutual espionage,
and a secret correspondence with head-quarters at Home, in
which everything that can, in the remotest degree, affect the
interests of the Society is made known, and by means of
which the whole machinery of Jesuitism can be set in motion
at once, o- its minutest feelers directed to any object at pleas-
are, presents the most complete1 system of organization in the
world. Every member is sworn, by secret oath, to obey the
orders, and all are confederated in a solemn league to advance
the cause of the Society. It has been defined to be " a na-
ked sword, the hilt of which is at Rome." Such a monstrous
combination could not fail to render itself obnoxious. Con-
stantly aiming at ascendency in the Church, in which it is an
imperium in imperio, the Society has not only been em-
broiled in perpetual feuds with the other orders, but has re-
peatedly provoked the thunders of the Vatican. Ever inter-
meddling with the affairs of civil governments, with allegiance
to which, under any form, its principles are utterly at vari-
ance, it has been expelled in turn from almost every Euro-
pean State, as a political nuisance. But Jesuitism is the very
soul of Popery ; both have revived or declined together ; and
accordingly, though the order was abolished by Clement
XIV. in 1775, it was found necessary to resuscitate it under
Pius VII. in 1814; and the Society was never in greater
power, nor more active operation, than it is at the present
noment. It boasts of immortality, and, in all probability, it
will last as long as the Church of Rome. It has been termed
" a militia called out to combat the Reformation," and exhib-
iting, as it does to this day, the same features of ambition,
treachery, and intolerance, it seems destined to fall only in

1 Caeca quadam obedientia. — Ut Christum Dominum in superiors
ifiutlibet agnoscere studeatis. — Perlnde ac si cadaver essent, vel similittf
atque senis baculus. — Ad majorem Dei gltr-iam (Constit. Jesuit, pan
»L cap. 1 ; Ignat. Epist., &c .)

t>'2 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

the ruins of that Church of whose unchanging spirit it is the
genuine type and representative.1

In prosecuting the ends of their institution, the Jesuits
have adhered with singular fidelity to its distinguishing spirit.
As the instructors of youth, their solicitude has ever been
less to enlarge the sphere of human knowledge than to bar
out what might prove dangerous to clerical domination ; they
have confined their pupils to mere literary studies, which
might amuse without awakening their minds, and make them
subtle dialecticians without disturbing a single prejudice of
the dark ages. As missionaries, they have been much more
industrious and successful in the manual labor of baptizing
all nations than in teaching them the Gospel.5 As theologi-
ans, they have uniformly preferred the views of Molina ; re-
garding these, if not as more agreeable to Scripture and right
reason, at least (to use the language of a late writer) as
" more consonant with the common sense and natural feelings
of mankind."3 As controversialists, they were the decided
foes of all reform and all reformers, from within or without
the Church. As moralists, they cultivated, as might be ex-
pected, the loosest system of casuistry, to qualify themselves
for directing the consciences of high and low, and becoming,
through the confessional, the virtual governors of mankind.
In all these departments they have, doubtless, produced men
of abilities ; but the very means which they employed to ag-

1 Balde, whom the Jesuits honor in their schools as a modern Horace,
ihus celebrates the longevity of the Society; in his Carmen Seculars de
Societate Jesu, 1 640 : —

" Profuit quisquis voluit nocere.
Cuncta subsident sociis ; ubique
Exules vivunt, et ubique cives!
Sternimus victi. supreamus imi,
Surgitnus plures toties cadendo."

5 Their famous missionary Francis Xavier, whom they canonized,
was ignorant of a single word in the languages of the Indians whom
he professed to evangelize. He employed a nand-bell to summon the
natives around him ; and the poor savages, mistaking him for one of
their learned Brahmans he baptized tr.em until his arm was exhausted
with the task, and boasted of every one he baptized as a regenerated
lonvert !

• Macintosh, Hist, of England, ii. 353.

CASUISTRY. 93

grandize the Society have tended to dwarf the intellectual
growth of its individual members : and hence, while it is true
that " the Jesuits had to boast of the most vigorous contro-
versialists, the most polite scholars, the most refined court-
iers, and the most flexible casuists of their age,'" it has been
commonly remarked, tfiat they have never produced a single
great man.

Casuistry, the art in which the Jesuits so much excelled,
is, strictly speaking, that branch of theology which treats of
cases of conscience, and originally consisted in nothing more
than an application of the general precepts of Scripture to
particular cases. The ancient casuists, so long as they con-
fined themselves to the simple rules of the Gospel, were at
least harmless, and their ingenious writings are still found
useful in cases of ecclesiastical discipline ; but they gradu-
ally introduced into the science of morals the metaphysical
jargon of the schools, and instead of aiming at making men
moral, contented themselves with disputing about morality.2
The main source of the aberrations of casuistry lay in the
unscriptural dogma of priestly absolution — in the right
claimed by man to forgive sin, as a transgression of the law
of God ; and the arbitrary distinction between sins as venial
and mortal — a distinction which assigns to the priest the pre-
rogative, and imposes on him the obligation, of drawing the
critical line, or fixing a kind of tariff on human actions, and
apportioning penance or pardon, as the case may seem to re-
quire. In their desperate attempt to define the endless forms
of depravity on which they were called to adjudicate, or
which the pruriency of the cloister suggested to the imagi-
nation, the casuists sank deeper into the mire at every step ;
and their productions, at length, resembled the common sew-
ers of a city, which, when exposed, become more pestiferous

1 Macintosh, Hist, of England, ii 357.

* Augustine himself is chargeabL with having been the first tointro-
*uce the scholastic mode of treating morality in the form of trifling
questions, more fitted to gratify curiosity, and display acumen, than to
edify or enlighten. His example was followed, and miserably abused,
oy the moralists of succeeding tiges. (Buddei Isagoge. vol. i p 50-S. >

94 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

than the filth which they were meant to remove. Even un-
der the best management, such a system was radically bad;
in the hands of the Jesuits it became unspeakably worse.
To their "modern casuists," as they were termed, must we
ascribe the invention of probabilism, mental reservation, and
the direction of the intention, which have been sufficiently ex-
plained and rebuked in the Provincial Letters. We shall
only remark here, that the actions to which these principles
were applied were not only such as have been termed indif
ferent, and the criminality of which may be doubtful, or de-
pendent on the intention of the actor : the probabilism of the
Jesuits was, in fact, a systematic attempt to legalize crime,
under the sanction of some grave doctor, who had found out
some excuse for it ; and their theory of mental reservations,
and direction of the intention, was equally employed to sanc-
tify the plainest violations of the divine law. Casuistry, it is
true, has generally vibrated betwixt the extremes of imprac-
ticable severity and contemptible indulgence ; but the charge
against the Jesuits was, not that they softened the rigors of
ascetic virtue, but that they propagated principles which
sapped the foundation of all moral obligation. " They are a
people," said Boileau, " who lengthen the creed and shorten
the decalogue."

Such was the community with which the Bishop of Ypres
ventured to enter the lists. Already had he incurred their
resentment by opposing their interests in some political nego-
tiations ; and by publishing his " Mars Gallicus," he had
mortally offended their patron, Cardinal Richelieu ; but,
Btrange to say, his deadly sin against the Society was a pos-
thumous work. Jansen was cut off by the plague, May 8,
1038. Shortly after his decease, his celebrated work, enti-
tled " Augustinus," wa- published by his friends Frotnond
=md Calen, to whom he had committed it on his death-bed.
To the preparation of this work he may be said to have de-
moted his life. It occupied him twenty-two years, during
vhich, we are told, he had ten times read through the works
»f Augustine (ten volumes, folio!) and thirty times collated

AUGUSTINUS. 95

those passages which related to Pelagianism.1 The book it-
self, as the title imports, was little more than a digest of the
writings of Augustine on the subject of grace.8 It was divi-
ded into three parts ; the first being a refutation of Pelagian-
isra, the second demonstrating the spiritual disease of man,
and the third exhibiting the remedy provided. The sincerity
of Jansen's love to truth is beyond question, though we may
be icermitted to question the form in which it was evinced.
The radical defect of the work is, that instead of resorting to
the living fountain of inspiration, he confined himself to the
cistern of tradition. Enamored with the excellences of Au-
gustine, he adopted even his inconsistencies. With the for-
mer lie challenged the Jesuits ; with the latter he warded off
the charge of heresy. As a con trover tist, he is chargeable
with prejudice, rather than dishonesty. As a reformer, he
wanted the independence of mind necessary to success. In-
stead of standing boldly forward on the ground of Scripture,
ha attempted, with more prudence than wisdom, to shelter
himself behind the venerable name of Augustine.

If bv thus preferring the shield of tradition to the sword
of the Spirit, Jansen expected to out-manoeuvre the Jesuits,
he Lad mistaken his policy. " Augustinus," though profess-
edly written to revive the doctrine of Augustine, was felt by
the Society as, in reality, an attack upon them, under the
name of Pelagians. To conscious delinquency, the language
of implied censure is ever more galling than formal impeach-
ment. Jansen's portrait of Augustine was but too faithfully
secuted ; and the disciples of Loyola could not fail to see
now far they had departed from the faith of the ancient
Church ; but the discovery only served to incense them at
the man who had exhibited their defection before the world.
The approbation which the book received from forty learned
doctors, and the rapture with which it was welcomed by the

Lancelot. Tour to Alet, p. 173; Leydecker. p. 122.
a The whole title was : " Augustinus Cornelii Jansenii episcopi. sen
ioctrina sancti Augustini de human® naturae sanctitate aegritudmiB
nedici. adversus Pelagianos et Massilienses." Louvain 1640.

90 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

friends of the author, only added to their exasperation. The
whole efforts of the Society were summoned to defeat its
influence. Balked by the hand of death of their revenge on
the person of the author, they vented it even on his remains.
By a decree of the pope, procured through their instigation,
a splendid monument, which had been erected over the grave
of the learned and much-loved bishop, was completely de-
molished, that, in the words of his Holiness, " the memory
of Jansen might perish from the earth." It is even said that
his body was torn from its resting-place, and thrown into
some unknown receptacle.1 His literary remains were no less
severely handled. Nicholas Cornet, a member of the Society,
after incredible pains, extracted the heretical poison of " Au-
gustinus," in the form of seven propositions, which were after-
wards reduced to five. These having been submitted to the
judgment of Innocent X., were condemned by that pontiff in
a bull dated 31st May, 1653. This decision, so far frcm re-
storing peace, awakened a new controversy. The Jansenists,
as the admirers of Jansen now began to be named by their
opponents, while they professed acquiescence in the judgment
of thr pope, denied that these propositions were to be found
in " .Aiijiusainus." The succeeding pope, Alexander Til.,
who was still morr favorable to the Jesuits, declared formally,
in a bull dated 1657, "that the five propositions were cer-
tainly taken from the book of Jansenius, and had been con-
demned in the sense of that author." But the Jansenista
were ready to meet him on this point ; they replied, that a
decision of this kind overstepped the limits of papal authcr-
ty, and that the pope's infallibility did not extend to a judg-
ment of facts.2

The reader may be curious to know something more about
these famous five propositions, condemned by the pope, which,
in fact, may be said to have given occasion to the Provincial
Letters. They were as follows : —

1 Leydecker, p. 132; Lancelot, p. 180.

a Ranke. Hist, of the Popes, vol. iii. 143 ; Abbe Du Mas. Hist. de»
ropositions, p. 48.

THE FIVE PROPOSITIONS. 97

1. There are divine precepts which good men, though wil-
ling, are absolutely unable to obey.

2. No person, in this corrupt state of nature, can resist the
influence of divine grace.

3. In order to render human actions meritorious, or other-
wise, it is not requisite that they be exempt from necessity,
but only free from constraint.

4. The semi-Pelagian heresy consisted in allowing the hu-
man will to be endued with a power of resisting grace, or of
complying with its influence.

5. Whoever says that Christ died or shed his blood for all
mankind, is a semi-Pelagian.

The Jansenists, in their subsequent disputes on these prop-
ositions, contended that they were ambiguously expressed,
and that they might be understood in three different senses —
a Calvinistic, a Pelagian, and a Catholic or Augustinian
sense. In the first two senses they disclaimed them, in the
last they approved and defended them. Owing to the ex-
treme aversion of the party to Calvinism, while they substan-
tially held the same system under the name of Augustinian-
ism, it becomes extremely difficult to convey an intelligible
idea of their theological views. On the first proposition, for
example, while they disclaimed what they term the Calvinis-
tic sense, namely, that the best of men are liable to sin in all
that they do, they equally disclaim the Pelagian sentiment,
that all men have a general sufficient grace, at all times, for
the discharge of duty, subject to free will ; and they strenu-
ously maintained that, without efficacious grace, constantly
vouchsafed, we can do nothing spiritually good. In regard
to the resistibility of grace, they seem to have held that the
will of man might always resist the influence of grace, if it
chose to do so ; but that grace would effectually prevent it
from so choosing. And with respect to redemption, they ap-
pear to have compromised the matter, by holding that Christ
died for all, so as that all might be partakers of the grace of
justification by th« merits of t.s death ; but they denied that
5

98 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

Christ died for each man in particular, so as to secure his
final salvation ; in this sense, he died for the elect only.

Were this the proper place, it would be easy to show that,
in the leading points of his theology, Jansen did not differ
from Calvin, so much as he misunderstood Calvinism. The
Calvinists, for example, never held, as they are represented
in the Provincial Letters,' " that we have not the power of
resisting grace." So far from this, they held that fallen man
could not but resist the grace of God. They preferred, there-
fore, the term " invincible," as applied to grace. In short,
they held exactly the victrix delectatio of Augustine, by which
the will of man is sweetly but effectually inclined to comply
with the will of God.2 On the subject of necessity and con-
straint their views are precisely similar. Nor can they be
considered as differing essentially in their views of the death
of Christ, as these, at least, were given by Jansen, who ac-
knowledges in his " Augustinus," that, " according to St.
Augustine, Jesus Christ did not die for all mankind." It is
certain that neither Augustine nor Jansen would have sub-
scribed to the views of grace and redemption held by many
who, in our day, profess evangelical views. Making allow-
ance for the different position of the parties, it is very plain
that the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius, Jansen
and Molina, Calvin and Arminius, was substantially one and
the same. At the same time, it must be granted that on the
great point of justification by faith, Jansen went widely
astray from the truth ; and in the subsequent controversial
writings of the party, especially when arguing against the
Protestants, this departure became still more strongly marked,
and more deplorably manifested.3

« Letter xviii. pp. 310-313.

1 \Vitsii CEconom. Foed.. lib. iii. ; Turret. Theol.. E'enct. xv. quest
I; De Moor Comment, iv. 496; Mestrezat. Serin, sur Rom., viii. 274.

1 I refer here particularly to Arnauld's treatise, entitled " Renverse-
oient de la Morafce de Jesus Christ par les Calvinistes," which was an-
jwered by Jurieu in his " Justification de la Morale des Refonnez." 1685,
by M. Merlat, and others. Jurieu has shown at^reat length, and with
a severity for which he had too much provocation, that Arnauld and his
friends, in their violent tirades against the Reformed, neither acted i»

ST. CYRAN. 99

The revenge of the Jesuits did not stop at procuring the
•ondemnation of Jansen's book ; it aimed at his living follow-
ers. Among these none was more conspicuous for virtue and
influence than the Abbe de St. Cyran, who was known to
have shared his counsels, and even aided in the preparation
of his obnoxious work. While Jansen labored to restore the
theoretical doctrines of Augustine, St. Cyran was ambitious
to reduce them to practice. In pursuance of the moral sys-
tem of that father, he taught the renunciation of the world,
and the total absorption of the soul in the love of God. His
religious fervor led him into some extravagances. He is said
to have laid some claim to a species of inspiration, and to
have anticipated for the Saviour some kind of temporal domin-
ion, in which the saints alone would be entitled to the wealth
and dignities of the world.1 But his piety appears to have
been sincere, and, what is more surprising, his love to the
Scriptures was such that he not only lived in the daily study
of them himself, but earnestly enforced it on all his disciples.
He recommended them to study the Scriptures on their knees.
" No means of conversion," he would say, " can be more
apostolic than the Word of God. Every word in Scripture
deserves to be weighed more attentively than gold. The
Scriptures were penned by a direct ray of the Holy Spirit ;
the fathers only 6y a reflex ray emanating therefrom." His
whole character and appearance corresponded with his doc-
trine. " His simple mortified air, and his humble garb
formed a striking contrast with the awful sanctity of his
countenance, and his native lofty dignity of manner."2 Pos-
sessing that force of character by which men of strong minds
silently but surely govern others, his proselytes soon in-
ereased. and he became the nucleus of a new class of re-
formers.

St. Cyran was soon called to preside over the renowned

rood faith, nor in consistency with cne sentiments of their much admired
leaders. Augustine and Jansen.

1 Fontaine, Memoires. i. 200 ; Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., cent. jniL 2.

* Lancelot, p. 123.

100 HISTORICAL INTRODCCTION.

monastery of Port-Royal. Two houses went under this
name, though forming one abbey. One of these was called
Port-Royal des Champs, and was situated in a gloomy forest,
about six leagues from Paris ; but this having been found an
unhealthy situation, the nun« were removed for some time to
nnother house in Paris, which went under the name »f Port-
Royal de Paris. The Abbey of Port-Royal was one of the
most ancient belonging to the order of Citeaux, having been
founded by Eudes de Sully, bishop of Paris, in 1204. It was
placed originally under the rigorous discipline of St. Bene-
dict, but in course of time fell, like most other monasteries,
into a state of the greatest relaxation. In 1602, a new ab-
bess was appointed in the person of Maria Angelica Arnauld,
sister of the famous Arnauld, then a mere child, scarcely
eleven years old ! The nuns, promising themselves a long
period of unbounded liberty, rejoiced at this appointment.
But their joy was not of long duration. The young abbess,
at first, indeed, thought of nothing but amusement ; but at
the age of seventeen a change came over her spirit. A cer-
tain Capuchin, wearied, it is said, or more probably disgust-
ed, with the monastic life, had been requested by the nuns,
who were not aware of his character, to preach before them.
The preacher, equally ignorant of his audience, and supposing
them to be eminently pious ladies, delivered an affecting dis-
course, pitched on the loftiest key of devotion, which left an
impression on the mind of Angelica never to be effaced. She
set herself to reform her establishment, and carried it into
effect with a determination and self-denial quite beyond her
years. This "reformation," so highly lauded by her pane-
gyrists, consisted chiefly in restoring the austere discipline of
^t Benedict, and other severities practised in the earlier
ages, the details of which would be neither edifying nor
agreeable. The substitution of coarse serge in place of linen
as underclothing, and dropping melted wax on the bare arms,
may be taken as specimens of the reformation introduced by
Mere Angelique. In these mortifying exercises the abbess
showed an example to all the rest. She chose as her dormi-

PORT-ROYAL ITS DEVOTIOV. 101

lory the filthiest cell in the convent, a place infested with
toads and vermin, in which she found the highest delight,
declaring that she " seemed transported to the grotto of
Bethlehem." The same rigid denial of pleasure was extended
to her food, her dress, her whole occupations. Clothed her-
self in the rudest dress she could procure, nothing gave her
greater offence than to see in her nuns any approach to the
fashions of the world, even in the adjustment of the coarse
black seree, with the scarlet cross, which formed their hum-

O *

ble apparel.1 Yet, in the midst of all this "voluntary hu-
mility," her heart seems to have been turned mainly to the
Saviour. It was Jesus Christ whom she aimed at adoring in
the worship she paid to "the sacrament of the altar." And
in a book of devotion, composed by her for private use, she
gave expression to sentiments too much savoring of undivi-
ded affection to Christ to escape the censure of the Church.
It was dragged to light and condemned at Rome." There
is reason to believe that, under the direction of M. de St.
Cyran, her religious sentiments, as well as those of her com-
munity, became much more enlightened. Her firmness in
resisting subscription to the formulary and condemning Jan-
sen, in spite of the most cruel and unmanly persecution, and
the piety and faith she manifested on her death-bed, when,
in the midst of exquisite suffering, and in the absence of the
rites which her persecutors denied her, she expired in the
full assurance of salvation through the merits of the only
Saviour, form one of the most interesting chapters in the
martyrology of the Church.

But St. Cyran aimed at higher objects than the manage-
ment of a nunnery. His energetic mind planned a system
of education, in which, along with the elements of learning,
the youth might be imbued with early piety. Attracted by
his fame, several learned nun, some of them of rank and for-

1 Memoires pour servir a 1'Histoire de Port- Royal, vol. i. pp. 35, 57
142.

8 Ih.. p. 456. The title of this work was. " The Secret Ch.iplet o<
the Holy Sacrament."

102 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

tune, fled to enjoy at Port- Royal des Champs a sacred retreat
from the world. This community, which differed from a
monastery in not being bound by any vows, settled in a farm
adjoining the convent, called Les Granges. The names of
Arnauld, D'Andilly, Nicole, Le Maitre, Saoy,' Fontaine,
i/ascal, and others, have conferred immortality on the spot.
The system pursued in this literary hermitage was, in many
respects, deserving of praise. The time of the recluses was
divided between devotional and literary pursuits, relieved by
agricultural and mechanical labors. The Scriptures, and
other books of devotion, were translated into the vernacular
language ; and the result was, the singular anomaly of a
Roman Catholic community distinguished for the devout and
diligent study of the Bible. Protestants they certainly were
not, either in spirit or in practice. Firm believers in the in-
fallibility of their Church, and fond devotees in the observ-
ance of her rites, they held it a point of merit to yield a blind
obedience, in matters of faith, to the dogmas of Rome. None
were more hostile to Protestantism. St. Cyran, it is said,
would never open a Protestant book, even for the purpose of
refuting it, without first making the sign of the cross on it,
to exorcise the evil spirit which he believed to lurk within
its pages.* From no community did there emanate more
learned apologies for Rome than from Port-Royal. Still, it
must be owned, that in attachment to the doctrines of grace,
so far as they went, and in the exhibition of the Christian
virtues, attested by their sufferings, lives, and writings, the
Port-Royalists, including under this name both the nuns and
recluses, greatly surpassed many Protestant communities.
Their piety, indeed, partook of the failings which have al-
ways characterized the religion of the cloister. It seems to
have hovered between superstition and mysticism. Afraid
to fight against the world, they fled from it ; and, forgetting
vhat our Saviour was driven into the wilderness to be tempt-

1 Sacy, or Saci. was the inverted name of Isaac Le Maitre, celebratef
br his translation of the Bible.

3 Mosheim. Eecl. Hist., cent. xvii. $2.

PORT-ROYAL ITS CHARACTERISTICS. 103

ed of the devil, they retired to a wilderness to avoid tempta-
tion. Half conscious of the hollowness of the ceremonial
they practised, they sought to graft on its dead stock the vi-
talities of the Christian faith. In their hands, penance was
sublimated into the symbol c.' penitential sorrow, and the
mass into a spiritual service, the benefit of which depended
on the preparation of the heart of the worshipper. In their
eyes, the priest was but a suggestive emblem of the Saviour ;
and to them the altar, with its crucifix and bleeding image,
served only as a platform on which they might obtain a more
advantageous view of Calvary. Transferring to the Church
of Rome the attributes of the Church of God, and regarding
her still, in spite of her eclipse and disfigurement, as of one
spirit, and even of one body, with Christ, infallible and im-
mortal, they worshipped the fond creation of their own fancy.
At the same time, they attempted to revive the doctrine of
religious abstraction, or the absorption of the soul in Deity,
and the total renouncement of everything in the shape of
sensual enjoyment, which afterwards distinguished the mys-
tics of the Continent. Even in their literary recreations,
while they acquired an elegance of style which marked
a new era in the literature of France, they betrayed their
ascetic spirit. Poetry was only admissible when clothed in
a devotional garb. It was by stealth that Racine, who stud-
ied at Port-Royal, indulged his poetic vein in the profane
pieces which afterwards gave him celebrity. And yet it is
candid to admit, that the mortifications in which this amiable
fraternity engaged, consisted rather in the exclusion of pleas-
ure than the infliction of pain, and that the object aimed at
in these austerities was not so much to merit heaven as to
attain an ideal perfection on earth. Port-Royalism, in short,
was Popery in its mildest type, as Jesuitism is Popery in its
perfection ; and had it been possible to present that system
in a form calculated to disarm prejudice and to cover its na-
tive deformities, the task might have been achieved by the
pious devotees of Les Granges. But the same merciful Prov-
idence which, for ihe preservation of the human species, has

104 HISTORICAL INTROPUCTIOIS.

furnished the snake with his rattle, and taught the lion to
"roar for his prey," has so ordered it that the Romish
Church should betray her real character, in order that his
people might "come out of her, and not be partakers of her
sins, that they receive not of her plagues." The whole sys-
tem adopted at Port-Royal was regarded, from the com-
mencement, with extreme jealousy by the authorities of that
Church ; the schools were soon dispersed, and the Jesuits
never rested till they had destroyed ever}7 vestige of the ob-
noxious establishment.

The enemies of Port-Royal have attempted to show that
St. Cyran and his associates had formed a deep-laid plot for
overturning the Roman Catholic faith. From time to time,
down to the present day, works have appeared, under the
auspices of the Jesuits, in which this charge is reiterated ;
and the old calumnies against the sect are revived — a period-
ical trampling on the ashes of the poor Jansenists (after hav-
ing accomplished their ruin two hundred years ago), which
reminds one of nothing so much as the significant grinning and
yelling with which the modern Jews celebrate to this day the
downfal of Haman the Agagite.1 In one point only could
their assailants find room to question their orthodoxy — the
supremacy of the pope. Here, certainly, they were led, more
from circumstances than from inclination, to lean to the side
of the Gallican liberties. But even Jansen himself, after
spending a lifetime on his " Augustinus," and leaving ii be-
hind him as a sacred legacy, abandoned himself and his trea-
tise to the judgment of the pope. The following are his
words, dictated by him half an hour before his death: "I
feel that it will be difficult to alter anything. Yet if the Ro-
mish see should wish anything to be altered, I am her obedi-
ent son ; and to that Church in which I have always lived,
even to this bed of death, I will prove obedient. This is my
last will." The same sentiment is expressed by Pascal, in one

1 We may refer particularly to Petitot in his Collection des Memoirea.
torn, rxxiii.. Paris, 1824; anil to a History of the Company of Jesus by
7. Cretineau-Joly, Paris. 1845. With high pretensions to impartiality
Jiese works abound with the most glaring specimens of special pleading

PORT-ROYAL ITS ENEMIES. 105

of his letters. Alas ! how sad is the predicament in which
the Church of Rome places her conscientious votaries ! Both
of these excellent men were as firmly persuaded, no doubt, of
the faith which they taught, as of the facts which came un-
der their observation ; and yet they held themselves bound
to cast their religious convictions at the feet of a fellow-mor-
tal, notoriously under the influence of the Jesuits, and pro-
fessed themselves ready, at a signal from Rome, to renounce
what they held as divine truth, and to embrace what they
regarded as damnable error ! A spectacle more painful and
piteous can hardly be imagined than that of such men strug-
gling between the dictates of conscience, and the night-mare
of that "strong delusion," which led them to " believe a lie."
In every feature that distinguished the Port-Royalists, they
stood opposed to the Jesuits. In theology they were antip-
odes— in learning they were rivals. The schools of Port-
Royal already eclipsed those of the Jesuits, whose policy it
has always been to monopolize education, under the pretext
of charity. But the Jansenists might have been allowed to
retain their peculiar tenets, had they not touched the idol
of every Jesuit, " the glory of the Society," by supplanting
them in the confessional. The priests connected with Port-
Royal, from their primitive simplicity of manners and severity
of morals, and, above all, from their spiritual Christianity,
acquired a popularity which could not fail to give mortal
offence to the Society, who then ruled the councils both of
the Church and the nation. Nothing less than the annihila-
tion of the whole party would satisfy their vengeful purpose.
In this nefarious design they were powerfully aided by Car-
dinal Richelieu, and by Louis XIV., a prince who, though yet
a mere youth, was entirely under Jesuitical influence in mat-
ters of religion ; and who, having resolved to extirpate Prot-
estantism, could not well endure the existence of a sect within
the Church, which seemed to favor the Reformation by ex«
posing the corruptions of the clergy.1

1 Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV., t. it
5*

106 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

To effect their object, St. Cyran, the leader and ornament
of the party, required to be disposed of. He was accused
of various articles of heresy ; and Cardinal Richelieu at once
gratified his party resentment and saved himself the trouble of
controversy, by immuring him in the dungeon of Vincennes.
In this prison St. Cyran languished for five years, and sur-
vived his release only a few months, having died in October,
1643, His place, however, as leadei of the Jansenist party,
was supplied by one destined to annoy the Jesuits by his con
troversial talents fully more than his predecessor had done by
his apostolic sanctity. Anthony Arnauld may be said to have
been born an enemy to the Jesuits. His father, a celebrated
lawyer, had distinguished himself for his opposition to the
Society, and having engaged in an important law-suit against
them, in which he warmly pleaded, in the name of the uni-
versity, that they should be interdicted from the education
of youth, and even expelled from the kingdom. Anthony,
who inherited his spirit, was the youngest in a family of
twenty children, and was born February 6, 1612.' Several
of them were connected with Port-Royal. His sister, as we
have seen, became its abbess ; and five other sisters were
nuns in that establishment. He is said to have given preco-
cious proof of his polemic turn. Busying himself, when a
mere boy, with some papers in his uncle's library, and being
asked what he was about, he replied, " Don't you see that I
am helping you to refute the Hugonots?" This prognostica-
.ion he certainly verified in after life. He wrote, with almost
equal vehemence, against Rome, against the Jesuits, and
against the Protestants. He was, for many years, the facile
princeps of the party termed Jansenists ; and was one of those
characters who present to the public an aspect nearly the re-
verse of the estimate formed of them by their private friends.
By the latter he is represented as the best of men, totally
free from pride and passion. Judging from his physiognomy,

1 M^moires de P. Royal, i. 13. Bayle insists that his father ha«
'wenty-two children. Diet., art. Arnauld.

PASCAL. 107

his writings and his life, we would say the natural temper of
Arnauld was austere and indomitable. Expelled from the
Sarbonne, driven out of France, and hunted from place to
place, he continued to fight to the last. On one occasion,
wishing his friend Nicole to assist him in a new work, the lat
ter observed, "We are now old, is it not time to rest?'
" Rest !" exclaimed Arnauld, " have we not all eternity to
rest in ?"

Such was the character of the man who now entered the
lists against the redoubtable Society. His first offence was
the publication, in 1643, of a book on "Frequent Commu-
nion ;" in which, while he inculcates the necessity of a spirit-
ual preparation for vhe eucharist, be insinuated that the
Church of Rome had a two-fold head, in the persons of Peter
and Paul.1 His next was in the shape of two letters, pub-
lished in 1656, occasioned by a dispute referred to in the first
Provincial Letter, in which he declared that he had not been
able to find the condemned propositions in Jansen, and add-
ed some opinions on grace. The first of these assertions was
deemed derogatory to the holy see ; the second was charged
with heresy The Jesuits, who sighed for an opportunity of
humbling the obnoxious doctor, strained every nerve to procure
his expulsion from the Sarbonne, or college of divinity in the
university. This object they had just accomplished, and ev-
erything promistd fair to secure their triumph, when another
combatant unexpectedly appeared, like one of those closely-
visored knights of whom we read in romance, who so oppor-
unely enter the field at the critical moment, and with their
single arm turn the tide of battle. Need we say that we
allude to the author of the PROVINCIAL LETTERS ?

Bayle commences his Life of Pascal by declaring him to be
" one of the sublimest geniuses that the world ever pro-
duced. " Seldom, at least, has the world ever seen such a
combination of excellences in one man. In him we are called
*> admire the loftiest attribuit-s of mind with the lovelies!

1 Weisman, Hist. Ecd., ii. 204.

108 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

Bimplicity of moral character. He is a rare example of one
born with a natural genius for the exact sciences, who ap-
plied the subtlety of his mind to religious subjects, combining
with the closest logic the utmost elegance of style, and
crowning all with a simple and profound piety. Blaise Pas-
cal was born at Clerraont, 19th June, 1623. His family had
been ennobled by Louis XI., and his father, Stephen Pascal
occupied a high post in the civil government. Blaise mani-
fested from an early age a strong liking for the study of
mathematics, and, while yet a child, made some astonishing
discoveries in natural philosophy. To these studies he devo-
ted the greater part of his life. An incident, however, which
occurred in his thirty-first year — a narrc'v escape from sud-
den death — had the effect of giving an entire change to the
current of his thoughts. He regarded it as a message from
heaven, calling him to renounce all secular occupations, and
devote himself exclusively to God. His sister and niece be-
ing nuns in Port-Royal, he was naturally led to associate with
those who then began to be called Jansenists. But though
he had several of the writings of the party, there can be no
doubt that it was the devotion rather than the theology of
Port-Royal that constituted its charm in the eyes of Pascal.
His sister informs us, in her memoirs of him, that " he had
never applied himself to abstruse questions in divinity." Nor,
beyond a temporary retreat to Port-Royal des Champs, and
an intimacy with its leading solitaries, can he be said to have
had any connection with that establishment. His fragile
frame, which was the victim of complicated disease, and his
feminine delicacy of spirit, unfitting him for the rough col
lisions of ordinary life, he found a congenial retreat amir1
these literary solitudes ; while, with his clear and comprt
tensive mind, and his genuine piety of heart, be must have
sympathized with those who sought to remove from the
Church corruptions which he could not fail to deplore, and to
renovate the spirit of that Christianity which he loved far
above any of its organized forms. His life, not unlike a per-
Detnal miracle, is ever exciting our admiration, not unmingled.

PASCAL. 100

however, with pity. We see great talents enlisted in the
support, not indeed of the errors of a system, but of a sys-
tem of errors — we see a noble mind debilitated by supersti-
tion— we see a useful life prematurely terminating in, if not
shortened by, the petty austerities and solicitudes of monas-
ticism. Truth requires us to state, that he not only denied
himself, at last, the most common comforts of life, but wore
beneath his clothes a girdle of iron, with sharp points, which,
as soon as he felt any pleasurable sensation, he would strike
with his elbow, so as to force the points of iron more deeply
into his sides. Let the Church, which taught him such folly,
be responsible for it ; and let us ascribe to the grace of God
the patience, the meekness, the charity, and the faith, which
hovered, seraph-wise, over the death-bed of expiring genius.
The curate who attended him, struck with the triumph of re •
ligion over the pride of an intellect which continued to bum
after it had ceased to blaze, would frequently exclaim : "Hu
is an infant — humble and submissive as an infant !" He died
on the 19th of August, 1662, aged thirty-nine years and twu
months.

While Arnauld's process before the Sarbonne was in de
pendence, a few of his friends, among whom were Pascal and
Nicole, were in the habit of meeting privately at Port-Royal,
to consult on the measures they should adopt. During these
conferences one of their number said to Arnauld : "Will you
really suffer yourself to be condemned like a child, without
saying a word, or telling the public the real state of the ques-
tion?" The rest concurred, and in compliance with their so-
licitations, Arnauld, after some days, produced and read be-
fore them a long and serious vindication of himself. Hia
audience listened in coolness and silence, upon wliich he re-
marked : " I see you don't think highly of my production,
and I believe you are right ; but," added he, turning him-
self round and addressing Pascal, " you who are young, why
cannot you produce something ?" The appeal was not lost
upon our author ; he had hitherto written almost nothing, but
lie engaged to try a sketch or rough draft, which they aright

110 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

fill up • and retiring to his room, he produced, in a few hours,
instead of a sketch, the first letter to a provincial. On read-
ing this to his assembled friends, Arnauld exclaimed, " That
is excellent ! that will go down ; we must have it printed
immediately."

Pascal had, in fact, with the native superiority of genius,
pitched on the very tone which, in a controversy of this kind,
was calculated to arrest the public mind. Treating theology
in a style entirely new, he brought down the subject to the
comprehension of all, and translated into the pleasantries of
comedy, and familiarities of dialogue, discussions which had
till then been confined to the grave utterances of the school.
The framework which he adopted in his first letter was ex-
ceedingly happy. A Parisian is supposed to transmit to one
of his friends in the provinces an account of the disputes of
the day. It is said that the provincial with whom he affected
to correspond was Perrier, who had married one of his sis-
ters. Hence arose the name of the Provincials, which was
given to the rest of the letters.

This title they owe, it would appear, to a mistake of the
printer ; for in an advertisement prefixed to one of the early
editions, it is stated that " they have been called ' Provin-
cials,' because the first having been addressed without any
name to a person in the country, the printer published it
under the title ' Letter written to a Provincial by one of his
Friends.' " This may be regarded as an apology for the use
of a term which, critically speaking, was rather unhappy
The word provincial in French, when used to signify a per
son residing in the provinces, was generally understood in a
bad sense, as denoting an unpolished clown.1 But the title,

1 The title under which the Letters appeared when first collected into
a volume was, " L/ettres ecrites par Louis de Montalte a un Provincial
fe ses amis, et aux RR. PP. Jesuites, sur la morale et la politique de
tes Peres."

Father Bouhours. a Jesuit ridicules the title of the Letters, and says
'.e is surprised they were not rather entitled "Letters from a Country
Pumpkin to his Friends." and instead of ;' The Provincr-ils" called ' Th«
Bumpkins"—1' Campagnardes.'' (Remarques sur la langue Fran., p
.i. 306 Dirt. Univ.. art. Pmriticial.} •

ANECDOTES OF THE PROVINCIALS. Ill

uncouth as it is, has been canonized and made classical for-
ever ; and " The Provincials" is a phrase which it would now
be fully as ridiculous to attempt to change as it could be at
first to apply it to the Letters.

The most trifling particulars connected with such a publi-
cation possess an interest. The Letters, we learn, were pub-
lished at first in separate stitched sheets of a quarto size
and, on account of their brevity, none of them extending to
more than one sheet of eight pages, except the last three,
which were somewhat longer, they were at first known by
the name of the " LITTLE LETTERS." No stated time was
observed in their publication. The first letter appeared Jan-
uary 13, 1656, being on a Wednesday ; the second on Janu-
ary 29, being Saturday ; and the rest were issued at inter-
vals varying from a week to a month, till March 24, 1657,
which is the date of the last letter in the series ; the whole
thus extending over the space of a year and three months.

All accounts agree in stating that the impression produced
by the Provincials, on their first appearance, was quite unex-
ampled. They were circulated in thousands in Paris and
throughout France. Speaking of the first letter, Father
Daniel says : " It created a fracas which filled the fathers of
the Society with consternation. Never did the post-office
reap greater profits ; copies were despatched over the whole
kingdom ; and I myself, though very little known to the
gentlemen of Port-Royal, received a large packet of them,
post-paid, in a town of Brittany where I was then residing."
The same method was followed with the rest of the letters.
The seventh found its way to Cardinal Mazarin, who laughed
over it very heartily. The eighth did not appear till a month
after its predecessor, apparently to keep up expectation.1
In short, everybody read the " Little Letters," and, what-
ever might be their opinions of the points in dispute, all
agreed in admiring the genius which they displayed. They
were found lying on the merchant s counter, the lawyer's

1 Daniel Entretiens, p. 19.

112 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

desk, the doctor's table, the lady's toilet ; and everywhem
they were sought for and perused with the same avidity.1
The success of the Letters in gaining their object was not
less extraordinary. The Jesuits were fairly checkmated ;
and though they succeeded in carrying through the censure
of Arnauld, the public sympathy was enlisted in his favor.
The confessionals and churches of the Jesuits were deserted
while those of their opponents were crowded with admiring
thousands.2 " That book alone," says one of its bitterest
enemies, " has done more for the Jansenists than the ' Au-
gustinus' of Jansen, and all the works of Arnauld put to-
gether."3 This is the more surprising when we consider that,
at that time, the influence of the Jesuits was so high in the
ascendant, that Arnauld had to contend with the pope, the
king, the chancellor, the clergy, the Sorbonne, the universi-
ties, and the great body of the populace ; and that never
was Jansenism at a lower ebb, or more generally anathema-
tized than when the first Provincial Letter appeared.

This, however, was not all. Besides having the tide of
public favor turned against them, the Jesuits found them-
selves the objects of universal derision. The names of their
favorite casuists were converted into proverbs : Escobarder
came to signify the same thing with " paltering in a double
sense ;" Father Bauny's grotesque maxims furnished topics
for perpetual badinage ; and the Jesuits, wherever they went,
were assailed with inextinguishable laughter. By no other
method could Pascal have so severely stung this proud and
self-conceited Society. The rage into which they were
thrown was extreme, and was variously expressed. At one
lime it found vent in calumnies and threats of vengeance.
At other times they indulged in puerile lamentations. It
was amusing to hear these stalwart divines, after breathing
fire and slaughter against their enemies, assume the queru-
lous tones of injured and oppressed innocence. " The perse-

1 Petitot, Notices, p. 121.

2 Benott, Hist, de 1'Edit. de Nantes, iii. 198
' Daniel, Entretiens. p. 11.

ANECDOTES OF THE PROVINCIALS. Ill

cution which the Jesuits suffer from the buffooneries of Port-
Royal," they said, "is perfectly intolerable : the wheel and
the gibbet are nothing to it ; it can only be compared to the
torture inflicted on the ancient martyrs, who were first rubbed
over with honey and then left to be stung to death by wanps
and wild bees. Their tyrants have subjected them to em-
poisoned raillery, arid the world leaves them unpitied to suf-
fer a sweet death, more cruel in its sweetness than the bit-
terest punishment."1

The Letters were published anonymously, under the ficti-
tious signature of Louis de Montalte, and the greatest care
was taken to preserve the secret of their authorship. As on
all such occasions, many were the guesses made, and the
false reports circulated ; but beyond the circle of Pascal's
personal friends, none knew him to be the author, nor was
the fact certainly or publicly known till after his death. The
following anecdote shows, however, that he was suspected,
and was once very nearly discovered : After publishing the
third letter, Pascal left Port-Royal des Champs, to avoid be-
ing disturbed, and took up his residence in Paris, under the
name of M. de Mons, in a hotel garni, at the sign of the King
of Denmark, Rue des Poiriers, exactly opposite the college
of the Jesuits. Here he was joined by his brother-in-law,
Perrier, who passed as the master of the house. One day
Perrier received a visit from his relative, Father Fretat, a
Jesuit, accompanied by a brother monk. Fretat told him
that the Society suspected M. Pascal to be the author of the
"Little Letters," which were making such a noise, and ad-
vised him as a friend to prevail on his brother-in-law to de-
sist from writing any more of them, as he might otherwise
involve himself in much trouble, and even danger. Perrier
thanked him for his advice, but said he was afraid it would
be altogether useless, as Pascal would just reply that he
could not hinder people from suspecting him, and that
though he should deny it they would not believe him. The
monks took their departure, much to the relief of Perrier, fo»

1 Nicole, Notes sur la xi. Lettre iii. 332.

114 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

Bt that very time several sheets of the seventh or eighth let-
ter, newly come from the printer, were lying on the bed,
where tluy had been placed for the purpose of drying, but,
fortunately, though the curtains were only partially drawn,
and one of the monks sat very close to the bed, they were
not observed. Perrier ran immediately to communicate the
incident to his brother-in-law, who was in an adjoining apart-
ment ; and he had reason to congratulate him on the narrow
escape which he had made.1

As Pascal proceeded, he transmitted his manuscripts to
Port-Royal des Champs, where they were carefully revised
and corrected by Arnauld and Nicole. Occasionally, these
expert divines suggested the plans of the letters ; and by
them he was, beyond all doubt, furnished with most of his
quotations from the voluminous writings of the casuists,
which, with the exception of Escobar, he appears never to
have read. We must not su,ppose, however, that he took
these on trust, or gave himself no trouble to veiify them.
We shall afterwards have proof of the contrary. The first
letters he composed with the rapidity of new-born enthusi-
asm ; but the pains and mental exertion which he bestowed
on the rest are almost incredible. Nicole says " he was often
twenty whole days on a single letter: and some of them
he recommenced seven or eight times before bringing them
to their present state of perfection."8 We are assured that
he wrote over the eighteenth letter no less than thirteen
times.8 Having been obliged to hasten the publication of
the sixteenth, on account of a search made after it in the
printing office, he apologizes for its length on the groum1
that " he had found no time to make it shorter."4

i Recueil de Port-Royal, 278, 279 ; Petitot. pp 122, 123.
5 Histoire des Provinciates, .p. 12.

* Petitot. p. 124. The eighteenth letter embraces the delicate topic
uf papal authority, as well as the distinction between faith and fact,
in stating which we can easily conceive how severely the ingenuous
mind of Pascal must have labored to find some plausible ground far,
rindicating his consistency as a Roman Catholic. To the Protestant
•eader, it must appear the most unsatisfactory of all the Letters.

* Prov. Let., p. 418.

CHARACTER OF THE PROVINCIALS. 1>»

The fruits of this extraordinary elaboration appear in every
letter ; but what is equally remarkable, is the art with which
BO many detached letters, written at distant intervals, and
prompted by passing events, have been so arranged as to
form an harmonious whole. The first three letters refer to
Arnauld's affair ; the questions of grace are but slightly
touched, the main object being to interest the reader in favor
of the Jansenists, and excite his contempt and indignation
against their opponents. After this prelude, the fourth let-
ter serves as a transition to the following six, in which he
takes up maxims of the casuists. In the eight concluding
letters he resumes the grand objects of the work — the morals
of the Jesuits and the question of grace. These three parts
have each their peculiar style. The first is distinguished for
lively dialogue and repartee. Jacobins, Molinists, and Jan-
senists are brought on the stage, and speak in character,
while Pascal does little more than act as reporter. In the
second part, he comes into personal contact with a casuisti-
cal doctor, and extracts from him, under the pretext of desi-
ring information, some of the weakest and worst of his max-
ims. At the eleventh letter, Pascal throws off his disguise,
and addressing himself directly to the whole order of the
Jesuits, and to their Provincial by name, he pours out his
whole soul in an impetuous and impassioned torrent of decla-
mation. From beginning to end it is a well-sustained bat-
tle, in which the weapons are only changed in order to strike
the harder.

The literary merits of the Provincials have been univer-
sally acknowledged and applauded. On this point, where
Pascal's countrymen must be considered the most competent
judges, we have the testimonies of the leading spirits of
France. Boileau pronounced it a work that has " surpassed
at once the ancients and the moderns." Perrault has given
a similar judgment : " There is more wit in these eighteen
letters than in Plato's Dialogues ; more delicate and artful
raillery than in those of Lucian ; and more strength and in-
genuity of reasoning than in the orations of Cicero. We

116 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

have nothing more beautiful in this species of writing."1
" Pascal's style," says the Abbe d'Artigny, " has never been
surpassed, nor perhaps equalled."2 The high encomium of
Voltaire is well known : " The Provincial Letters were mod-
els of eloquence and pleasantry. The best comedies of Mo-
lidre have not more wit in them than the first letters ; Bos-
suet has nothing more sublime than the last ones." Again,
the same writer says : "The first work of genius that ap-
peared in prose was the collection of the Provincial Letters.
Examples of every species of eloquence may there be found.
There is not a single word in it which, after a hundred years,
has undergone the change to which all living languages are
liable. We may refer to this work the era when our lan-
guage became fixed. The Bishop of Luc,on told me, that
having asked the Bishop of Meaux what work he would wish
most to have been the author of, setting his own works
aside, Bossuet instantly replied, ' The Provincial Letters.' "J
"Pascal succeeded beyond all expression," says D'Alem-
bert ; " several of his bon-mots have become proverbial in
our language, and the Provincials will be ever regarded as a
model of taste and style."4 To this day the same high eulo-
giums are passed on the work by the best scholars of
France.*

To these testimonies it would be superfluous to add any
criticism of our own, were it not to prepare the English
reader for the peculiar character of our author's style. Pas-
cal's wit is essentially French. It is not the broad humor
>{ Smollet ; it is not the cool irony of Swift ; far less is it
the envenomed sarcasm of Junius. It is wit — the lively, po-
lite, piquant wit of the early French school. Nothing can be
finer than its spirit ; but from its very fineness it is apt to evap-
orate in the act of transfusion into another tongue. Nothing

Perrault, Parallcle des Anc. et Mod., Bayle, art. Pascal.
D'Articrny. Nouveaux Memoires iii. p. 34.
Voltaire. Siorle de Louis XIV. torn. ii. pp. 171, 274.
D'Alembt-rt Destruct. des Jesuites p. 51.

Bordas- Demon lin Eloge de Pascal, p. xxv. (This was the pri»«
issay before the French Academy, in June, 1842.)

CHARACTER OF THE PROVINCIALS. 117

can be more ingenious than the transitions by which the author
glides insensibly from one topic to another ; and in the more
serious letters, we cannot fail to be struck with the mathe-
matical precision of his reasoning. But there is a speeies of
iteration, and a style of dovetailing his sentiments, which
does not quite accord with our taste ; and the foreign texture
of which, in spite of every effort to the contrary, must shine
through any translation.

High as the Provincials stand in the literary world, they
were not suffered to pass without censure in the high places
of the Church. The first effect of their publication, indeed,
was to raise a storm against the casuists, whom Pascal had so
effectually exposed. The cures of Paris, and afterwards the
assembly of the clergy, shocked at the discovery of such a
sink of corruption, the existence of which, though just be-
neath their feet, they never appear to have suspected, deter-
mined to institute an examination into the subject. Hitherto
the tenets of the casuists, buried in huge folios; or only taught
in the colleges of the Jesuits, had escaped public observa-»
tion. The clergy resolved to compare the quotations of Pas-
cal with these writings ; and the result of the investigation
was, that he was found to be perfectly correct, while a mul-
titude of other maxims, equally scandalous, were dragged to
light. These were condemned in a general assembly of the
c.ergy.1 Unfortunately for the Jesuits, they had not a single
writer at the time capable of conducting their vindication.
Several replies to the Provincials were attempted while they
were in the course of publication ; but these were taken up
by the redoubtable Montalte, and fairly strangled at their
birth.9 Shortly after the Letters were finished, there ap-
peared " An Apology for the Casuists," the production of a

1 Nicole, Hist, des Provinciates.

a The names of these unfortunate productions alone survive; 1.
'"First Reply to Letters, &c.. by a Father of the Company of Jesus."
B " Provincial Impostures of Sieur de Montalte, Secretary of Port-
Royal, discovered and refuted by a Father of the Company of Jesus."
3. " Reply to a Theologian," &c. 4. ': Reply to the Seventeenth Let-
•er, by Francis Annat," &c., &c. —

118 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

Jesuit named Pirot, who, with a folly and frankness which
proved nearly as fatal to his order as it did to himself,
attempted to vindicate the worst maxims of the casuistical
school. This Apology was condemned by the Sorbonne, and
subsequently at Rome ; its author died of chagrin, and the
Jesuits fell into temporary disgrace.1

But, with that tenaciousness of life and elasticity of limb
which have ever distinguished the Society, it was not long
before they rebounded from their fall and regained their feet.
Unable to answer the Letters, they succeeded in obtaining, m
February, 165*7, their condemnation by the Parliament of
Provence, by whose orders they were burnt on the pillory by
the hands of the common executioner. Not content with
this clumsy method of refutation, they succeeded in procur-
ing the formal condemnation of the Provincials by a censure
of the pope, Alexander VII., dated 6th September, 1657.
In this decree the work is " prohibited and condemned, under
the pains and censures contained in the Council of Trent, and
in the index of prohibited books, and other pains and cen-
sures which it may please his holiness to ordain." It is
almost needless to say, that these sentences neither enhanced
nor lessened the fame of the Provincials. It must be inter-
esting to know what the feelings of Pascal were, on learning
that this work, into which he had thrown his whole heart,
and mind, and strength, and which may be said to have been
at once his chef-d'oeuvre and his confession of faith, had been
condemned by the head of that Church which he had hith-
erto believed to be infallible. Warped as his fine spirit was
by education, his unbending rectitude forbids the supposition
that he could surrender his cherished and conscientious sen-
timents at the mere dictum of the pope. An incident oc-
curred in 1661, shortly before his death, strikingly illustrative
T)f his conscientiousness, and of the sincerity of purpose with
which the Letters were written. The persecution had begun
to rage against Port-Royal ; one mandement after another

1 Eichhorn, Gcschichte der Litteratur. vol. i. pp. 420-423.

PAPAL CONDEMNATION CF THE PROVIXl,IAL8. 119

requiring subscription to the condemnation of Jansen, came
down from the court of Rome ; and the poor nuns, shrink-
ing, on the one hand, f "om violating their consciences by sub-
scribing what they believed to be an untruth, and trembling,
on the other, at the consequences of disobeying their eccle-
siastical superiors, were thrown into the most distressing em-
barrassment. Their " obstinacy," as it was termed, only pro-
voked their persecutors to more stringent demands. In these
circumstances, even the stern Arnauld and the conscientious
Nicole were tempted to make some compromise, and drew up
a declaration to accompany the signature of the nuns, which
they thought might save at once the truth and their consist-
ency. To this Pascal objected, as not sufficiently clear, and
as leaving it to be inferred that they condemned " efficacious
grace." He could not endure the idea of their employing an
ambiguous statement, which appeared, or might be supposed
by their opponents, to grant what they did not really mean
to concede. The consequence was a slight and temporary
dispute — not affecting principle so much as the mode of
maintaining it — in which Pascal stood alone against all the
members of Port-Royal. On one occasion, after exhausting
his eloquence upon them without success, he was so deeply
affected, that his feeble frame, laboring under headache and
other disorders, sunk under the excitement, and he fell into a
swoon. After recovering his consciousness, he explained the
cause of his sudden illness, in answer to the affectionate
inquiries of his sister : " When I saw those," he said, " whom
I regard as the persons to whom God has made known hi?
truth, and who ought to be its champions, all giving way, L
was so overcome with grief that I could stand it no longer."
Subsoquent mandements, still more stringent, soon saved the
{.oor nuns from the temptation of ambiguous submissions, and
•econciled Pascal and his friends.1

•' Recueil de Port-Rcyal, pp. 314-323. Some papers passed between
Pascal and his friends on this topic. Pascal committed these on hin
death-bed, to his friend M. Domat. "with a request that he would burn
them if the nuns of Port-Royal proved firm, and print them if thej
ihould yield." (Ib., p. 322.) The nuns biving stood firm, the croha

120 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

But we are fortunately furnished with his own reflections
on the subject of the Provincials, in his celebrated " Thoughts
on Religion :"

" I feared," says he, " that I might have written errone-
ously, when I saw myself condemned ; but the example of so
many pious witnesses made me think differently. It is no
longer allowable to write truth. IF MY LETTERS ARE CON-
DEMNED AT ROME, THAT WHICH I CONDEMN IN THEM IS CON

DEMNED IN HEAVEN."'

It is only necessary to add, that Pascal continued to main-
tain his sentiments on this subject unchanged to the last. On
his death-bed, M. Beurrier, his parish priest, administered to
him the last ntes of his Church, and came to learn, after hav-
ing confessed him, that he was the author of the " Provincial
Letters." Full of concern at having absolved the author of
a book condemned by the pope, the good priest returned,
and asked him if it was true, and if he had no remorse of
conscience on that account. Pascal replied, that "he could
assure him, as one who was now about to give an account to
God of all his actions, that his conscience gave him no trou-
ble on that score ; and that in the composition of that work
he was influenced by no mad motive, but solely by regard to
the glory of God and the vindication of truth, and not in the
least by any passion or personal feeling against the Jesuits."
Attempts were made by Perefixe, archbishop of Paris, first
to bully the priest for having absolved such an impenitent
offender,1" and afterwards to force him into a false account of
his penitent's confession. It was confidently reported, on the
pretended authority of the confessor, that Pascal had ex-
pressed his sorrow for having written the Provincials, and

bility is that they were destroyed. Had they been preserved, they micrht
have thrown some further light on the opinions of Pascal regarding
papal authority.

1 Si mes Lettrec sont condamnees a Rome, ce que fy condamne. est
tondamne dans le del. (Pensees de Blaise Pascal, torn. ii. 1G3. Paris
1824.)

8 '• How came you," said the archbishop to M. Beurrier, " to admin*
v T the sacraments to such a person 1 Didn't you know that he wat<
a jaiisenist 1" (Recueil, 348.)

EDITIONS OF THE PROVINCIALS. 121

that he had condemned his friends of Port-Royal for want
of due respect to papal authority. Both these allegations
were afterwards distinctly refuted — the first by the written
avowal of M. Beurrier, and the other by two depositions for-
mally made by Nicole, showing that the real ground of Pas-
cal's brief disagreement with his friends was directly the ic-
verse of that which had been assigned.1

Few hooks have passed through more editions than the
Provincials. The following, among many others, may be
mentioned as French editions: — The first, in 1656, 4to; a
second in 1657, 12mo; a third in 1658, 8vo; a fourth in
1659, 8vo; a fifth in 1666, 12mo; a sixth in 1667, 8vo; a
seventh in 1669, 12mo ; an eighth in 1689, 8vo; a ninth in
1712, 8vo ; a tenth in 1767, 12mo.* The later editions are
beyond enumeration. The Letters were translated into Latin,
during the lifetime of Pascal, by his intimate friend, the
learned and indefatigable Nicole, under the assumed namf of
" William Wendrock, a Saltzburg divine."3 Nicole, who was
a complete master of Latin, has given an elegant, though
comewhat free, version of his friend's work. He has fre-
quently added to the quotations taken from the writings of
the Jesuits and others ; a liberty which he doubtless felt
himself the more warranted to take, from the share he had
in the original concoction of the Letters. Nicole's prelimi-
nary dissertatioa and notes were translated by Mademoiselle
de Joncourt, a lady, it is said, " possessed of talents and
piety, who, to the graces peculiar to her own sex, added the
Accomplishments which are the ornament of ours."4 Be-
sides this, the Provincials have been translated into nearly all

1 Recueil de Port-Royal, pp. 327-330 ; Petitot, p. 165.

2 Walchii Biblioth. Theol., ii. 295.

8 The title of Nicole's transL-.tion, now rarely to he met with, is, L/u-
dorici Montaltii Litteree Provinciales. de Moroli et Politica Jesuitarum
Disciplina. A Wlllelmo Wendrockio. Salisburgensi Theologo, Several
editions of this translation were printed. I have the first, published at
Cologne in 1658, and the fifth, much enlarged, Cologne, 1679.

4 Avertissement. Les Provinciales, ed. 1767. Mad. de Joncourt, 01
Joncoux, took a deep interest in the falling fortunes of Port-Royal
fSce some account of her in Madame Schimmelpenninck'a History of
Vhe Dtmolition of Port-Royal, p. 135.)
6

122 HISTORICAL IXTRODUC riOX.

the languages of Europe. Bayle informs us that lie had seen
an edition of them iu 8vo, with four columns, containing the
French, Latin, Italian, and Spanish.1 The Spanish transla-
tion, executed by Gratien Cordero of Burgos, was suppressed
by order of the Inquisition.1 But all the efforts made for
(.he suppression of the Provincials only served to promote
their popularity ; and their enemies found that, if they would
wlence, they must answer them.

Forty years elapsed after the publication of the Provincials
before the Jesuits ventured on a reply. At length, in 1697,
appeared an answer, entitled Entrctiens de Cleandre et (T Eu-
doxe, sur les Lettres au Provincial. The author is known to
have been Father Daniel, the historiographer of France.
This learned Jesuit undertook the desperate task of refuting
the Provincials, in a form somewhat resembling that of the
Letters themselves, being a series of supposed conversations
between two friends, aided by an abbe, " who is excessively
frank and honest, one who never could bear all his life to see
people imposed upon." The dialogue is conducted with con-
siderable spirit, but is sadly deficient in vrai 'semblance. Tlvj
author commences with high professions of impartiality. Ole-
ander and Eudoxus are supposed to be quite neutral — some
what like the free-will of Molina, " in a state of perfect equi
librium, until good sense and stubborn facts turn the scale.'
But, alas ! the equilibrium is soon lost, without the help eithei
of facts or of sense. The friends have hardly uttered two
sentences, till they begin to talk as like two Jesuits as could
well be imagined. Party rage gets the better of literary dis-
cretion ; the Port-Royalists are " honest knaves," " true hyp-
ocrites," " villains animated with stubborn fury ;" Arnauld's
" pen may be known by the gall that drops from it ;" Nicole
" swears like a trooper," and as to Pascal he is all these char-
acters in turn, while his book is " a repertory of slander,"
Mid is " villainous in a supreme degree !"

The whole strain of Daniel's reply corresponds with thif

i Bayle. Diet. art. Pascal.
* Daniel, Kntretiens p. 111.

DANIELS ANSWER TO THE PROVINCIALS. 123

specimen of its spirit. Avoiding the error of Pirot, and yet
without renouncing the favorite dogmas of the Society, such
as probabilism, equivocations, and mental reservations, which
he only attempts to palliate, Father Daniel has exhausted his
skill in an attack on the sincerity of Pascal. His main ob-
ject is to convey the impression that the Provincials are a
libel, written in bad faith, and full of altered texts and false
citations. In selecting this plan of defence, the Jesuit cham-
pion evinces considerably more ingenuity than ingenuousness.
He was well aware that, at the time of their publication, the
Letters had been subjected to a sifting process of examina-
tion by the most clear-sighted Jesuits, who had signally failed
in proving any falsifications. But he knew also, that, during
the forty years that had elapsed, the writings of the casuists
had fallen into disuse and contempt, mainly in consequence
of the scorching which they had received from the wit and
eloquence of Pascal, and that it would be now a much easier
and safer task to call in question the fidelity of citations which
none would give themselves the trouble of verifying. In this
bold attempt to turn the tables against the Jansenists, by ac-
cusing them of chicanery and pious fraud, the very crimes
which they had succeeded in establishing against their oppo-
nents, the unscrupulous Jesuit could be at no loss to find,
among the voluminous writings of the casuists, some plausi-
ble grounds for his charges. At all events, he could calcu-
late on the readiness with which certain minds, fonder of gen
eralizing than of investigating facts, would lay hold of the
nere circumstance of a book havi.ig been written in defence
of his order, as sufficient to show that a great deal may be
eaid on both sides. As to the manner in which Daniel has
executed his task, it might be sufficient to say, that it has
been acknowledged by the Jesuits themselves to be a failure.
Even at its first appearance, great efforts were made to sup-
press it altogether, as likely tr do more harm than good to
ihe Society ; and in their references to it afterwards, we see
the disappointment which they felt. " There was lately pub-
lished," says Richelet, " an answer to the Lettres Provin-

124 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

ciaxs, which professes to demolish them, but which, never-
theless, will not do them much harm. Do you ask how ?
The reason is, that although this answer shows the horrid
injustice, the abominable slanders, and injurious falsehoods of
the Provincials, against one of the most famous societies in
the Church, yet these Letters have so long, by their facetious
Ruches, got the laughers of all denominations on their side,
that they have acquired a credit and authority of which it
will be difficult to divest them. It must be confessed that
prejudice, on this occasion, is very unjust, very cruel, and
very obstinate in its verdict; since, though these Letters have
been condemned by popes, bishops, and divines, and burnt
by the hands of the hangman, yet they have taken such deep
root in people's minds as to bid defiance to all these pow-
ers."1 " The reply," says another writer, " as may be easily
imagined, was not so well received as the Letters had been.
Father Daniel professed to have reason and truth on his side ;
but his adversary had in his favor what goes much further
with men, the arms of ridicule and pleasantry."9 This, how-
ever, is a mere begging of the question Ridentem dicer e
verum, quid vetat? It is quite possible that Father Daniel
may be lugubriously in the wrong, and Pascal laughingly in
the right. This was very triumphantly made out in the an-
swer to Daniel's work, which appeared in the same year with
the Entretiens, under the title of " Apology for the Provin-
cial Letters, against the last Reply of the Jesuits, entitled
Conversations of Oleander and Eudoxus." The author was
Don Mathieu Petitdidier, Benedictine of the congregation of
St. Vanne, who died bishop of Macra.8 In this masterly per-
formance, the accusations of Daniel are shown to be totally
groundless, his answers Jesuitical and evasive, and his argu-
ments untenable. The " Apology" was never answered, and
Daniel's work sank out of sight.
Subsequent apologists of the Jesuits have followed th«

1 Bayle, Diet., art. Pascal, note K.

a Abbe de Castres. Les Trois Siecles, ii. 63.

1 Pnrbier, Diet, des Ouvragcs Anon, et Pseudon.

PASCAL'S SELF- VINDICATION. 125

line of defence adopted by Father Daniel. The continued
repetition of his charges, though they have been long since
disposed of, renders it necessary to advert to them. For the
strict fidelity of Pascal's citations, we have not merely the
testimony of contemporary witnesses, but what will be to
many a sufficient guarantee, the solemn assertion of Pascal
himself. In a conversation that took place within a year of
his death, and which has been preserved by his sister, he thus
answers the chief articles of accusation that had been brought
against the Provincials: —

" I have been asked, first, if I repented of having written
the Provincial Letters ? I answered that, far from repent-
ing, if I had it to do again, I would write them yet more
strongly.

" I have been asked, in the second place, why I named the
authors from whom I extracted these abominable passages
which I have cited ? I answered, If I were in a town where
there were a dozen fountains, and I knew for certain that one
of them was poisoned, I should be under obligation to tell
the world not to draw from that fountain ; and, as it might
be supposed that this was a mere fancy on my part, I should
be obliged to name him who had poisoned it, rather than ex-
pose a whole city to the risk of death.

" I have been asked, thirdly, why I adopted an agreeable,
jocose, and entertaining style ? I answered, If I had writ-
isn dogmatically, none but the learned would have read my
book ; and they had no need of it, knowing how the mattei
stood, at least as well as I did. I conceived it, therefore, my
duty to write, so that my Letters might be read by women,
and people in general, that they might know the danger of
all those maxims and propositions which were then spread
abroad, and admitted with so little hesitation.

"Finally, I have been asked, if I had myself read all the
V>oks which I quoted ? I answered, No. To do this, I had
need have passed the greater part of my life in reading very
6ad books. But I have twice read Escobar throughout ; and
<or the others, I got several of my friends _o read them ; bul

126 HISTORICAL II FROI UCTION.

/ have never used a single passage without having read, it my-
self in the book quoted, without having examined the case in
which it is brought forward, and without having read the
preceding and subsequent context, that I might not run the
risk of citing that for an answer which was in fact an objec-
tion, which would have been very unjust and blamable.'"

If this solemn declaration, emitted by one whose heart wag
a stranger to deceit, and whose shrewdness placed him be-
yond the risk of delusion, is not accepted as sufficient, we
might refer to the mass of evidence collected at the time in
the Factums of the cures of Paris and Rouen, to the volu-
minous notes of Nicole, and to the Apology of Petitdidier, in
which the citations made by Pascal are authenticated with a
carefulness which not only sets all suspicion at rest, but leaves
a large balance of credit in the author's favor, by showing
that, so far from having reported the worst maxims of the
Jesuitical school, or placed them in the most odious light of
which they were susceptible, he has been extremely tender
towards them. But, indeed, the truth was placed beyond all
dispute, through the efforts of the celebrated Bossuet, in
1700, when, by a sentence of an assembly of the clergy of
France, the morals of the Jesuits, as exhibited in their " mon-
strous maxims, which had been loner the scandal of the

Church and of Europe," were formally condemned, and when
it may be said that the Provincial Letters met at once their
full vindication and their final triumph.2

Another class of objectors, whom the Jesuits have had
the good fortune to number among their apologists, are th
sceptical philosophers, whose native antipathy to Jansenism,
as a phase of serious religion, renders them willing to sacrifice
truth for the sake of a sneer at his disciples. D'Alembert

1 Tabaraud, Dissertation sur la fin qui est due an Temoi^rnagt de
Pascal dans ses Lettres Provinciates, p 1'2. — This work, published soae
years ago in France, contains a complete justification of Pascal's pvc-
ture of the Jesuits in the Provincials accompanied with a mass of au
.hcrities. The above sentiments have been introduced into Pascal'
Thoughts. (See Craig's translation, p. 185.)

2 Vie do Bossu. t t. iv. p. I!) ; Tabaraud, Dissert, sur la foi. &c , p. 43

VOLTAIRE AND THE PROVINCIALS. 121

expresses his regret that Pascal did not lampoon Jesuits and
tlansenists alike ;' and Voltaire, in the mere wantonness of
his cynical humor, if not from a more worthless motive, has
appended to his high panegyric on the Provincials, already
quoted, the following qualifications : " It is true that the
whole of Pascal's book is founded upon a false principle. He
has artfully charged the whole Society with the extravagant
opinions of some few Spanish and Flemish Jesuits, which he
might with equal ease have detected among the casuists of
the Dominican and Franciscan orders ; but the Jesuits alone
were the persons he wanted to attack. In these Letters he
endeavored to prove that they had a settled design to cor-
rupt the morals of mankind — a design which no sect or soci-
ety ever had, or ever could have. But his business was not
to be right, but to entertain the public."1 Every clause
here contains a fallacy. The charge of party- spirit, insinua-
ted throughout, is perfectly gratuitous. Never, perhaps,
was any man more free from this infirmity than Pascal.
That it was pure zeal for the morality of the Gospel which
engaged him to take up his pen against the Jesuits, can be
doubted by none but those who make it a point to call in
question the reality of all religious conviction.8 Equally un-
founded is the imputation of levity. Pascal was earnest in
his raillery. A deep seriousness of purpose lurked under
the smile of his irony. Voltaire describes himself, not the au-
thoi of the Provincials, when he says that " his business was
not to be right, but to entertain the public." As to Pascal
having " endeavored to prove that the Jesuits had a settled
design to corrupt the morals of mankind," we are not sur-
prised at Father Daniel saying so ; but it is unaccountable
how any but a Jesuit, who professed to have read the Let-
ters, could advance a theory so distinctly anticipated and dis-

1 " The shocking doctrine of Jansenius, and of St. Cyran, afforded
lit least as much room for ridicule as the pliant doctrine of Molina, Tarn-
Dourin. and Vasquez." (D'Alemhert. Dest. of the Jesuits, p. 55.)

» Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. ii. 3G7.

8 Eichhorn Geschichte cler Lit., i. 426.

128 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

claimed in the Letters themselves. " Know, then," it is said
in letter fifth, " that their object is not the corruption of
manners — that is not their design. But as little is it their
sole aim to reform them — that would be bad policy."'
"Alas!" says the Jesuit, in letter sixth, " our main object,
no doubt, should have been to establish no other maxims
than those of the Gospel ; and it is easy to see, from our
rules, that if we tolerate some degree of relaxation in others,
it is rather out of complaisance than design"* In truth
nothing is more clearly marked throughout the Letters than
this distinction between the design of the Society and the
tendency of its policy — a distinction which leaves very small
scope for the sage apophthegm of the philosophical historian.
There is some reason to think that Voltaire expressed himself
in this manner, with the view of procuring the recommenda-
tion of Father Latour to enter the Academy — an object for
the accomplishment of which, it is well known, he made the
most unworthy concessions to the Jesuits. \

Later critics, in speasing of the Provincials, have indulged
in a similar strain of vague depreciation ; as a specimen of
which we might have referred to Schlegel, who talks of their
being "nothing more than a master-piece of sophistry,"3
and repeats the charge of profaneness, which Pascal has so
triumphantly refuted in his eleventh letter. It would be a
sad waste of time to answer this ridiculous objection. Nor
will it be surprising to those who know the history of Blanco
White, to find him indulging in a sceptical vein on this as or
.»ther subjects. "Pascal and the Jansenist party," he says,
" accused them of systematic laxity in their moral doctrines ,
but the charge, I believe, though plausible in theory, was
perfectly groundless in practice. The strict, unbending max-
ims of the Jansenists, by urging persons of all characters and
tempers on to an imaginary goal of perfection, bring quickly
their whole system to the decision of experience. A greater

> Prov. Let., p. 196. f Ib.. p. 220.

1 Tabaraud p. 117; Bonl. Demoulin, Elooe dc Pascal. Append.

1 Schlegel, Lectures on Hist, of Lit. ii. 188.

CRITICISMS ON THE PROVINCIALS. 129

knowledge of mankind made the Jesuits more cautious in the
culture of devotional feelings. They well knew that but few
can prudently engage in open hostility with what, in ascetic
language, is called the world."' The strange mixture of
truth and error in this statement leaves an unfavorable im-
pression on the mind, the fallacy of which we feel ere we
have time to analyze it. It is true that nothing could be
more opposite to the laxity of the Jesuits than the asceticism
of Port-Royal. But it is doing injustice to Pascal to insinu-
ate that he measured Jesuitical morality by " the strict, un-
bending maxims of the Jansenists ;" and it is flagrantly un-
true that the Jesuits merely aimed at reducing monastic
enthusiasm to the standard of common sense and ordinary
life. We repeat that the real charge which Pascal substanti-
ates against them is, not that they softened the austerities of
the cloister, but that they sacrificed the eternal laws of moral-
ity— not that they prudently suited their rules to men's tem-
pers, but that they licensed the worst passions and propensi-
ties of our nature — not that they declined urging all to for-
sake the world (which he never expected), but that they
sought, for their own politic ends, to veil its impurities, and
countenance its evil customs.

Disguising their hostility to science, under the mask of
friendship to literature, the Jesuits have succeeded in making
to themselves friends of many who are acquainted with them
only through the medium of their writings. And it is the
remarkable fact of our day, that, while on the Continent,
where they are practically known, the Jesuits have enlisted
against themselves the pens of its most eminent novelists,
historians, and philosophers, in Protestant England it is quite
Uie reverse. The most talented of our periodical writers
Lave exerted all their powers to white-wash them, to paint
and paper them, and set them off with ornamental designs ;
and where they have not dared to defend, they have tried to
blunt the edge of censure against them. Following in the

1 Letters from Spain, p. 86.
6*

I 30 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

same line of defence, a certain class of Protestant writers,
fond of historical paradox, and of appearing superior to vul-
gar prejudices, have volunteered to protect the Jesuits. " No
man is a stranger to the fame of Pascal," says Sir James
Macintosh ; " but those who may desire to form a right judg-
ment on the contents of the Lettres Provinciales would do
well to cast a glance over the Entretiens d'Ariste et d1 Euge-
nie, by Bouhours, a Jesuit, who has ably vindicated his
order.'" Sir James had heard, perhaps, of Father Daniel's
Entretiens de Cleandre et d'Eudoxe, but it is very evident
that he had never even " cast a glance over" that book ; for
the work of Bouhours, which he has confounded with it, is a
philological treatise, which has no reference whatever to the
Provincial Letters ; and yet he could say that the Jesuit
" has ably vindicated his order !" Next to the art which
the Jesuits have shown in smuggling themselves into places
of power and trust, is that by which they have succeeded in
hoodwinking the merely literary portion of society.

But, not to dwell longer on these objections, the Provin-
cials are liable to another charge, seldomer advanced, and
not so easily answered ; which is, that the loose casuisti-
cal morality denounced by Pascal was not confined to the
Jesuits, nor to any one of the orders of the Romish Church,
much less, as Voltaire says, to " a few Spanish and Flemish
Jesuits," but was common to all the divines of that Church,
and was, in fact, the native offspring and inevitable growth
of the practices of confession and absolution. It is admitted
that the Jesuits were mainly responsible for its preservation
and propagation ; that they have been the most zealous in
reducing it to practice ; that, even after it had incurred the
anathemas of popes, bishops, and divines, and after it had
been disclaimed by all the other orders of the Church, the
Jesuits pertinaciously adhered to it ; and that, even to this
day, they have identified themselves with the worst tenets
of the casuists. But Protestants writers have generally al«

1 Macintosh, Hi&tory of England, vol. ii. 359, note

PROTESTANT CRITICISM. 131

leged. not withcu.t reason, that the corruptions of casuistical
divinity may be traced from the days of Thomas Aquinas
and Cajetan. whom the Church of Rome owns as authori-
ties ; that the "new casuists" merely carried the maxims of
their predecessors to their legitimate conclusions ; and that
though condemned by some popes, the censure has been only
partial, and has been more than neutralized by the condem-
nation of other works written against the morality of the
Jesuits. Thus, in a work entitled " Guimenius Amadeus,"
the author, who was the Jesuit Moya, boldly claimed the
sanction of the most venerated names in favor of the modern
casuists. This work, it is true, was condemned to the flames
in 1680, by Pope Innocent XL, who was favorable to the
Jansenists ; but the Jesuits boast of having obtained other
papal constitutions, reversing the judgment of that pontiff",
whom they do not scruple to stigmatize with heresy.' It
cannot be denied that tjhe Jesuits have all along succeeded
in obtaining for their System the sanction of the highest au-
thorities in the Church ; while those works which undertook
to advocate a purer morality were printed clandestinely,
without privilege or approbation, under fictitious names of
authors and printers ; nor can it be forgotten that the Pro-
vincial Letters, the most powerful exposure of Jesuitical
morality that ever appeared, were censured at Rome, and
burnt by the hands of the executioner.* In short, and with-
out entering into the question so ingeniously handled by
Nicole and other Jansenists, whether the modern casuists
were justified in their excesses by the ancient schoolmen, it
is undeniable that this is the weakest point. of the Provin-
cials, and one on which tl.e thorough-going Jesuit occupies,
on popish principles, the most advantageous ground. The
disciples of Loyola constitute the very soul of the Papacy ;
and they must be held as the genuine exponents of that atro-

1 Eichhorn. Geschichte der Litter., vol. i. pp. 423-425; Weisman,
Hist. Eccl.. vol. ii. 21 ; Jurieu. Prejugez Legitimes cont. le Papisme, p,
<8i> ; Claude. Defence of the Reformation, p. 29.

" Jurieu. Justification de la Morale des Reformez. centre M. Arnauld,
i P. 30.

132 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

eious system of morals which, engendered in ths privacy of
the cloister during the dark ages, reached its maturity in the
hands of a. designing priesthood, who still find it too conve-
nient a tool for their purposes to part with it.

There are other respects in which we cannot fail to detect,
throughout these Letters, the enfeebling and embarrassing
influence of Popery over the naturally ingenuous mind of the
author. Among all the maxims peculiar to the Jesuits, none
are more pernicious than those in which they have openly
taught that disobedience to the Papal See releases subjects
from their allegiance and oaths of fidelity to their sovereigns,
and authorizes them to put heretical rulers to death, even
by assassination.1 On this point Pascal has failed to speak
out the whole truth. Whether it may have been from genuine
dread of heresy, or from a wish to spare the dignity of the
pope, it is easy to see the timidity, the circumspection, the
delicacy with which he touches on the point of papal au-
thority.

The Jansenists have been called the Methodists of the
Church of Rome ; but the term is applicable to them rather
in the wide sense in which it has been applied, derisively, to
those who have sought reformation or aimed at superior
sanctity within the pale of an established Church, than as
applied to the party now known under that designation.
They disclaimed the title of Jansenists, as a nickname applied

1 A disingenuous attempt has been sometimes made to identify these
nefarious maxims with certain principles held by some of our reformers.
There is an essential difference between the natural right claimed, we
do not say with what justice, for subjects to proceed against their rulers
as tyrants, and the right assumed by the pope to depose rulers as her-
etics. And it is equally easy to distinguish between the disallowed acts
of some fanatical individuals who have taken the law into their own
hands, and the atrocious deeds of such men as Chatel and Ravaillac,
who could plead the authority of Mariana the Jesuit, that " to put ty-
rannical princes to death is not only a lawful but a laudable, heroic,
and glorious action." (Dalton's Jesuits ; their Principles and Acts,
London, 1843.) The Church of St. Ignatius at Rome is or was adorn,
ed, it seems, with pictures of all the assassinations mentioned in Scrip-
lure, which they have, most presumptuously, perverted in justification o
their feats in thi-s departiii'riit. (D'Alembert Dest. of the Jesuits, p.
MM.)

DISADVANTAGES OF THE JANSEN71ST8. 133

to them by their adversaries. They held themselves to be
jhe true Catholics, the representatives of the Church as it
existed down, at least, to the days of St. Bernard, whom
they termed " the last of the fathers." They ascribed a spe-
cies of semi-inspiration to the early fathers of the Church.
They reverenced the Scriptures, but received them at second-
hand, through the medium of tradition. To be a Catholic
and a Christian were with them convertible terms. Hence
the horror evinced by Pascal, in his concluding letters, at
the bare thought of "heresy existing in the Church."
'•'Embarrassed at every step," it has been well observed,
" by their professed submission to the authority of the popes,
galled and oppressed by their necessary acquiescence in the
flagrant errors of their Church, these good men made profes-
sion of the great truths of Christianity under an incompara-
bly heavier weight of disadvantage than has been sustained
by any other class of Christians from the apostolic to the
present times. Enfeebled by the enthusiasm to which they
clung, the piety of these admirable men failed in the force
necessary to carry them through the conflict with their atro-
cious enemy, ' the Society.' They were themselves in too
many points vulnerable to close fearlessly with their adver-
sary, and they grasped the sword of the Spirit in too infirm

a manner to drive home a deadly thrust The Jan-

senists and the inmates of Port-Royal displayed a constancy
that would doubtless have carried them through the fires of
martyrdom ; but the intellectual courage necessary to bear
them fearlessly through an examination of the errors of the
papal superstition, could spring only from a healthy form of
mind, utterly incompatible with the dotings of religious ab-
straction, and the petty solicitudes of sackclothed abstinence.
The Jansenists had not such courage ; if they worshipped
not the Beast, they cringed before him ; he placed hia
iragon-foot upon their necks, and their wisdom and their
Tirtues were lost forever to Francs.'"

1 Taylor, Natural Hist, of Enthusiasm, p. 256.

134 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

It is the policy of the Jesuits at present, as of old, to deny-
point-blank, the truthfulness of Pascal's statements of their
doctrine and policy — to reiterate the exploded charge of hia
having garbled his extracts — and, after affecting to join in
the laugh at his pleasantry, and to forgive, for the wit's sake,
his injustice to their innocent and much-calumniated fathers,
to declare that, of course, he could not himself believe the
half of what he said against them, nor comprehend the pro-
found questions of casuistry on which he presumed to argue.
Under this affectation of charity, they dexterously evade Pas-
cal's main charges, and slyly insinuate a vindication of the
heresies of which they have been convicted. Thus, in a iate
publication, one of their number actually attempts to vindi-
cate the old Jesuitical doctrine of probabilism ! ' At the
same time, they retain, with undiminished tenacity, the moral
maxims which Pascal condemns. The discovery lately made
of the Theology of Dens, still taught by the Jesuits in Ire-
.aud, is a proof of this : for it is nothing more than a collec-
tion of the most wicked and obscene maxims of casuistical
morality. Matters are no better in France. Dr. Gilly men-
tions a publication issued at Lyons, in 1825, which is so bad
that the reviewer says, " We cannot, we dare not copy it ; it
is a book to which the cases of conscience of Dr. Sanchez
were purity itself."* The disclosures made still more re-
cently by M. Michelet and M. Quinet, are equally startling,
and will, in all probability, issue in another expulsion of the
Jesuits from France.

The policy of the Society, as hitherto exhibited in the
countries where they have settled, describes a regular cycle
of changes. Commencing with loud professions of charity,
of liberal views in politics, and of an accommodating code of
morals, they succeed in gaining popularity among the non-

1 De 1'Existence et de 1'Institut des Jreuites. Par le R. P. de Ra-
vign an.de la Compagnie de Jesus. Paris, 1845, p 83. Probabilism is
the doctrine, that if any opinion in morals lias been held by any grant
doctor of the Church, it is probably true, and may be safely followed in
metiee,

' Gilly Xanativf of an F,Trur.«ion to Piedmont, p. 150

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 135

religious, the dissipated, and the restless portion of society.
Availing themselves of this, and carefully concealing, in
Protestant country, the more obnoxious parts of their creed,
their next step is to plant some of the most plausible of their
apostles in the principal localities, who are instructed to estab-
lish schools and seminaries on the most charitable footing, so
as to ingratiate themselves with the poor, while they secure
the contributions of the rich ; to attack the credit of the most
active and influential among the evangelical ministry ; to re-
vive old slanders against the reformers ; to disseminate tracts
of the most alluring description ; arid, when assailed in turn,
to deny everything and to grant nothing. Rising by these
means to power and influence, they gradually monopolize the
seats of learning and the halls of theology — they glide, with
noiseless steps, into closets, cabinets, and palaces — they be-
come the dictators of the public press, the persecutors of the
good, and tjie oppressors of all public and private liberty.
At length, their treacherous designs being discovered, they
rouse against themselves the storm of natural passions, which,
descending on them first as the authors of the mischief,
sweeps away along with them, in its headlong career, every-
thing that bears the aspect of that active and earnest religion,
under the guise of which they had succeeded in duping man-
kind.

What portion of this cycle they have reached among us
it is needless to demonstrate. They have evidently got be-
yond the first stage ; and it is highly probable that, in proof
of it, the present publication may elicit a more than ordinary
exhibition of their skill in the science of defamation and de-
nial. It is far from being unlikely that, at the present point
of their revolution, they may find it their interest, after all
the mischief that Pascal has done them, and all the ill that
they have spoken against Pascal, to claim him as a good
Catholic, and take advantage of the prestige of his name to
Insinuate, that the Church which could boast of such a man
is not to be lightly esteemed. And, in fact, it requires no
«mall exercise of caution to guard cursives against such an

136 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

illusion, It is difficult to characterize Popery as it deserves
without apparent uncharitableness to individuals, such as
Fenelon and Pascal, who, though members of a corrupt
Church, possessed much of the spirit of true religion. But,
though it would be impossible to class such eminent and pious
men with an infidel cardinal or a Spanish inquisitor, it does
not follow thac they are free from condemnation. It has been
justly remarked, that " their example has done much harm,
and been only the more pernicious from their eminence and
their virtues. It is difficult to calculate how much assistance
their well-merited reputation has given to prop the falling
cause of Popery, and to lengthen out the continuance of a
delusion the most lasting and the most dangerous that has
ever led mankind astray from the truth.'" With regard to
our author, in particular, it may be well to remember, that
he was virtuous without being indebted to his Church, and
evangelical in spite of his creed ; that his piety, for which
he is so much esteemed by us, was the very quality that ex-
posed him to odium and suspicion from his own communion j
that the truths, for his adherence to which we would claim
him as a brother in Christ, were those which were reprobated
by the authorities of Rome ; and that the following Letters,
for which he is so justly admired, were, by the same Church,
formally censured and ignominiously burnt, along with the
Bible which Pascal loved, and the martyrs who have suffered
for " the truth as it is in Jesus."

1 Douglas on Errors in Religion, p. 1 13.

LIST OF WORKS

TO BE CONSULTED WITH REFERENCE TO PASCAL AND HIS WR1TINOS.

Recueil de plusieurt, pieces pour servir a 1'histoire de Port-RoyaL
Dtrecht, 174U, in-12.

Memoires poui servir a 1'histoire de Port-Royal et a la vie de la
mere Ange'lique Utrecht, 1742, t. iii.

Vies interessames des religieuses de Port-Royal, 1751, t. ii.

Lettres, opuscules et memoires de madame Perier, de Jacqueline, sceur
de Pascal, et de Marguerite Perier, sa niece, public's sur les manu-
Bcrits originaux, par M. P. Faugere. 1845, 1 vol. in-8.

COUSIN, Jacqueline Pascal. Paris, 1845, in-18.

The live works whose titles are given above, although separated
by wide intervals of time, and all subsequent to the seventeenth
centiu'y, may be regarded as the most direct sources for the history
of Pascal and that of his family, because they are almost exclusively
composed of contemporaneous documents ; for which reason we
place them at the head of this bibliographical notice.

Eloge de Pascal, by Nicole (in Latin), reproduced by the Abbe" Bos-
sut, at the head of his edition.

BAILLET, Vie de Descartes, II* part., p. 330.

Sentiments de M. . . . (Boullier) sur la Critique des Pensees de Pascal,
par M. de Voltaire, 1741 et 1753. An excellent composition by a
French Protestant, a refugee in Holland. Boullier was the only
champion who defended Pascal against Voltaire ; and he did it, ac-
cording to M. Sainte-Beuve, with gravity and vigor, planting him-
self from the outset at the centre of attack. See PorLRoyal, vol.
iii., p. 323 et sequens.

Eloge de Blaise Pascal, par Condorcet, 1776. Reprinted in the
(Euvres de Condorcet, Paris, Didot, 1847, in-8, t. iii., p. 567 et seq.

Remarques de Voltaire sur les pensees de Pascal. Sixty-four of these
remarks, under the date of 1728, are preceded by an Advertisement
added by Voltaire ; eight others bear the date of May 10, 1743, and
are applied to certain of the Pensees published by P. Desmolets,
which the early editors had rejected from their collection ; finally
uinety-four appeared, for the first time, in the octavo edition which
Voltaire caused to be published at Geneva, in 1778.

Discours sur la vie et les ouvraaes de Pascal, by the Abbe' Bossut, in-
Kerted in the edition of 1779, 5 vol. in-8 and reprinted separately,
wifa additions and corrections, in 1781.

;/»,/• Pascal: CHATEAUBRIAND, Genie du Christianisme, III" part., liv,
d . chap. vi.

Eloge de Blaise Pascal, par Alexis Dumesnil. Paris, 1813, in-8.

138 BIULIOGKAI'HICAL NOTICE.

Eloge dt Blaise Pascal, accompagne' dc notes historiques et critiques,
L)y Georges-Marie Raymond. Lyon, 1816, in-8. 2" tklit.

J. H. MOKNIER, Essai sur Blaise Pascal. Paris, 1822, in-8.

Discours prelinimaire de 1' Edition des Pensees, par M. Frantin. Di-
jon, 1835, -2? e"dit., 1853.

Journal des Savants, 1839, p. 554.

KKUCHLIN, Pascal's Leben. Stuttgard, 1840.

COUSIN. Sur la necessite d'une nouvelle edition des Pensees de Pascal.
Report to the French Academy. (Journal des Savants, avril-novem-
bre, 1842.) Reprinted under the following title : Des Pennies dt
Pascal, etc. Paris, 1843, in-8. See M. Foisset's compte-renda of this
work, in the Correspondant, April, 1843. A new edition (revue et corri-
aee) app^red in 1849. In a preface to this new edition, M. Cousiu
discusses, at great length, the question of Pascal's philosophic skep-
ticism. Inasmuch as a great deal of needless controversy has grown
out of a misappreh&nsion — the confounding of skepticism in philos-
ophy with skepticism in religion, we will here give M. Cousin's
very clear statement of the question. There probably will be no
difference of opinion among those competent to form a judgment,
when the point shall be definitely understood

"Already, in 1828," l says M. Cousin, " -we had found Pascal a
skeptic, even in Port-Royal and Bossut ; in 1842, we found him still
more skeptical in the autograph manuscript, and, in spite of the
lively controversy that has been awakened on the subject, our con-
viction has not been for a single moment shaken — it has been even
strengthened by new studies.

" ' What ! Pascal a skeptic ?' such is the cry raised in almost ev-
ery quarter. ' What Pascal are you putting in the place of him who
has hitherto been regarded as one of the greatest defenders of the
Christian religion?' A truce, gentlemen; let us understand each
other, I beg you. I have not said that Pascal was a skeptic in reli-
gion : that were indeed a little too absurd : far from that, Pascal

believed in Christianity with all the powers of his soul The

question must be stated with clearness and precision : — Pascal was
a skeptic in philosophy and not in religion ; and because he was a
skeptic in philosophy he attached himself so much the more closely
to religion, as to the last resource of humanity in the impotence of
reason, in the ruin of all natural truth among men. This is what I

have said, what I now maintain

" What is skepticism ? It is a philosophical opinion that consists
precisely in rejecting all philosophy a? impossible, on the ground
that man is incapable of reaching "?y himself any truth, still less
those truths that constitute what is called, in philosophy, Ethics
and Natural Religion, that is, the freedom of man, the law of duty,
the distinction between just and unjust, between good and evil, the
sanctity of virtue, the immateriality of the soul, and Divine Provi-
dence. All philosophers worthy of the name aspire to these truths.
.n order to reach them one takes one course, another another : pro-
cesses differ ; hence diverse methods and schools, less opposed to
each other than one at first sight would believe, whose history ex-
presses the movement and progress of human intelligence and civil-
nation. But the most different schools pursue the same end, — the

Ccurs de FhUioire de la philcspphie modern f, II« Serie, t ii., lee. xli., p. 888.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 139

establishment of truth ; and they set out from a common principle,
from the firm conviction that man has received from God the power
of attaining truths of the moral order, as well as those of the physi-
cal order. This natural power, which they place in sensation or re-
flection, in sentiment or intellect, is among themselves a subject
of family quarrel ; but they are all agreed upon the essential point,
that man possesses the power of reaching truth ; for upon this con
dition, and this alone, philosophy is not a chimera.

" Skepticism is the adversary, not only of such or such a school
of philosophy, but of all schools. We must not confound skepticism
and doubt. Doubt has its legitimate use, its wisdom, its utility.
It serves philosophy in its way, for it warns her of her aberrations,
and reminds reason of its imperfections and limits. It may be ap-
plied to such a result, such a process, such a principle, even such an
order of cognitions ; but as soon as it is applied to the faculty of
knowing, if it contests with reason her power and her rights, from
that moment doubt is no longer doubt, it is skepticism. Doubt does
not shun truth, it seeks it, and the better to attain it, watches over
and holds in check the procedures — often rash — of reason. Skep-
ticism does not seek the truth, for it knows, or thinks it knows, that
there is none and can be none for man. Doubt is to philosophy an
inconvenient, often an importunate, always a useful friend : skepti-
cism is to it a mortal enemy. Doubt occupies, in some sort, the
place in the empire of philosophy of the constitutional opposition in
the representative system ; it acknowledges the principle of the gov-
ernment, only criticises its acts, and that too, in the very interest
of the government. Skepticism resembles an opposition that labors
to ruin the established order, and exerts itself to destroy.the princi-
ple itself in virtue of which it speaks. In days of peril, the constitu-
tional opposition hastens to the support of the government, while
the other opposition invokes dangers, and in them places its hopes of
triumph. Thus, when the rights of philosophy are menaced, doubt,
feeling itself also menaced, rallies to her as to its own principle ;
skepticism, on the contrary, then lifts the mask and openly betrays.

" Skepticism is of two kinds : it is either its own end, and rests
tranquilly in the negation of all certitude ; or it has a secret aim
quite different from its apparent object. In the bosom of philosophy
it has the appearance of combating for the unlimited liberty of the
human mind, against the tyranny of what it calls philosophical dog-
matism, while in reality it is conspiring in favor of a foreign tyranny.

" Who does not remember, for example, having seen in our times
a French writer1 preaching, in one volume of the "Essay on Indif-
ference," the most absolute skepticism, in order to conduct us, ir.
the other volumes, to the most absolute dogmatism that ever existed ?

" It remains to ascertain whether skepticism, as we have just de-
fined it in general, is or is not in the book of ' Thoughts.'

" According to us, it is, and manifests itself on every page, at ev-
ery line. Pascal breathes skepticism ; he is full of it ; he proclaims
its principle, accepts all its consequences, and pushes it at the outset
to its final term, which is the avowed contempt and almost hatred
•)f all philosophy.

*•' Yes. Pascal is a declared enemy of philosophy : he believes in it

1 The allusion is to tbe Abbe de Lamennsis • ED.

140 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

neither ranch nor little; he absolutely rejects it." — (Btaise 1'nmil,
preface de la noicvelle edition, pp. 3-6.)

Da sceplicisnie de Pascal. (Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 de"cembre, 1814
—15 jauvier, 1845.)

BORDAS-DKMOULIN, Eloge de Pascal (concours de 1' Academic frau-
jaise, en 1842). _

PROSPER FAUGERE, Eloge de Pascal (meme concours).

Fait inedit de la vie de Pascal, par M. Francois Collet. Paris, 1848,
in-8 de 44 pages

flistoire de la Litlerature fran^aise de M. Nisard, t. i.

Pensees, fragments et lettres de Blaise Pascal, published for the first
time after the original manuscripts in great part inedited, by M.
Prosper Faugere. Paris, 1844, 2 vols. in-8. See M. Sainte-Beuve's
Compte-rendu of this work in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1" juillet, 1844.

ALEX. THOMAS, dePascali ; an vere scepticus fuei-it. 1844. in-8 (thesis
for a doctorate).

De I'Amulelte de Pascal. e"tude sur le rapport de la sante' de ce grand
homme a son g^nie, par le docteuv Le"lut. Paris, 1846. in-8.

North British Review. August, 1844 (Article on Pascal).

Edinburgh Review. January, 1847 (Article on Pascal).

L'ABBE FLOTTE, Etudes sur Pascal. 1843-1845, in-8.

VINET, Etudes sur Pascal, 1844-1847.

De la methode philosophique de Pascal, par Lescoeur, 1850.

L'ABBE MAYNARD Pascal, sa vie, son caractere, etc. Paris, 1850,
2 vol. in-8. The principal object of this book is to defend Pascal
against the charge of skepticism.

SAINTE-BEUVE, Port- Royal, t. ii., liv. iii , chap. i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. ,
t. iii., liv. iii., chap. viii. ix. x. xi. xii. xiii. xvii. xviii. xix. xx. xxi.

HAVET, Elude sur les Pensees de Pascal (Introduction of his edition of
the Pensees). Pans, Dezobry, 1852, in-8.

Revue de theoloaie et la philosophic chretienne. Vol. 8, 1854. Several
articles on Pascal, in which M. F.-L. Fre"d. Chavannes aims to &how
the part played by the idea of authority in the life of the author of
the Pensees.

Revue chretienne, 1854. Pascal et le vicaire Savoyard, par J.-F. AstSe*.

Pensees de Pascal, e'dition variorum, par Charles Louandre. Paris,
Charpentier, 1858.

Pensees de Pascal, e'dition complete, avec des notes, un index et
une pre'face par J.-F. Astie'. Paris et Lausanne, 1857.

Select Memoirs of Port-Royal; to which are added, Tour to Alet,
Visit to Port-Royal, Gift of an Abbess, Biographical Notices, &c.,
from original documents ; by M. A. Schimmelpenninck. Fifth edi-
tion, 3 vols. 8vo. London : Longman, Brown & Co., 1859.

Whoever wishes to read the Provindales in the original, will find a
pure text and beautiful typography in the Lefevre edition, among
the Chefs-d '(Euvre Littiraires du XVII. Siede; Didot Freres, Paris.

THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS

LETTER I.

DISPUTES IN THE SORBONNE, AND THE INVENTION OF PROXIMATE

POWER A TERM EMPLOYED BY THE JESUITS TO PROCURE THE

CENSURE OF M. ARNAULD.

PARIS, January 23, 1656.

SIR, — We were entirely mistaken. It was only yesterday
that I was undeceived. Until that time I had labored under
the impression that the disputes in the Sorbonne were vastly
important, and deeply aftected the interests of religion. The
frequent convocations of an assembly so illustrious as that of
the Theological Faculty of Paris, attended by so many ex-
traordinary and unprecedented circumstances, led one to form
such high expectations, that it was impossible to help coming
to the conclusion that Vhe subject was most extraordinary.
You will be greatly surpilsed, however, when you learn from
the following account, the issue of this grand demonstration,
which, having made myself perfectly master of the subject,
I shall be able to tell you in very few words.

Two questions, then, were brought under examination ; the
one a question of fact, the other a question of right.

The question of fact consisted in ascertaining whether M
Arnauld was guilty of presumption, for having asserted in
his second letter1 that he had carefully perused the book of

1 Anthony Arnauld. or Arnaud. priest and doctor of the Sorbonne,
was the BOH of Anthony Arnauld, a famous advocate and born at Paris,
February f>. 1612. He early distinguished himself in philosophy and
Jivinity, advocating the doctrines of Augustine and Port-Royal, and op-

'2 I'KOVJNCIAL LETTERS.

Jansenius, and that he had not discovered the propositions
condemned by the late pope ; but that, nevertheless, as he
condemned these propositions wherever they might occur, he
condemned them in Jansenius, if they were really contained
in that work. '

The question here was, if he could, without presumption,
entertain a doubt that these propositions were in Jansenius,
after the bishops had declared that they were.

The matter having been brought before the Sorbonne, sev-
enty-one doctors undertook his defence, maintaining that the
only reply he could possibly give to the demands made upon
him in so many publications, calling on him to say if he held
that these propositions were in that book, was, that he had
not been able to find them, but that if they were in the book,
he condemned them in the book.

Some even went a step farther, and protested that, after
all the search they had made into the book, they had nevei
stumbled upon these propositions, and that they had, on the
contrary, found sentiments entirely at variance with them.
They then earnestly begged that, if any doctor present had
discovered them, he would have the goodness to point them
out ; adding, that what was so easy could not reasonably be
refused, as this would be the surest way to silence the whole

posing those of the Jesuits. The disputes concerning grace which
broke out about 1C43 in the University of Paris, served to foment the
mutual animosity between M. Arnauld and the Jesuits, who entertained
a hereditary feud against the whole family, from the active part taken
by their father against the Society in the close of the preceding century.
In Ifi55 it happened that a certain duke, who was educating his grand-
daughter at Port-Royal, the Jansenist monastery, and kept a Jansenist
abbe in his house, on presenting himself for confession to a priest under
the influence of the Jesuits, was refused absolution unless he promised
to recall his grand-daughter and discard his abbe. This produced two
letters from M. Arnauld, in the second of which he exposed the calum-
nies and falsities with which the Jesuits had assailed him in a multitude
of pamphlets. This is the letter referred to in the text.

1 The book which occasioned these disputes was entitled Augustinus,
and was written by Cornelius Jansrnius or Jansen. bishop^ of Ypies
and published after his death. Five propositions, selected from this
vork. were condemned by the pope ; and armed with these, as with u
*courge, the Jesuits continued to persecute the Jansenists till they ac-
tomplished their ruin.

DISPUTES IN THE SORBONNK. 143

of them, M. Arnauld included ; but this proposal has been
uniformly declined. So much for the one side.

On the other side are eighty secular doctors, and some
forty mendicant friars, who have condemned M. Arnauld's
proposition, without choosing to examine whether he has spo-
ken truly or falsely — who, in fact, have declared, that they
have nothing to do with the veracity of his proposition, but
simply with its temerity.

Besides these, there were fifteen who were not in favor of
the censure, and who are called Neutrals.

Such was the issue of the question of fact, regarding
which, I must say, I give myself very little concern. It does
not affect my conscience in the least whether M. Arnauld is
presumptuous, or the reverse ; and should I be tempted, from
curiosity, to ascertain whether these propositions are con-
tained in Jansenius, his book is neither so very rare nor so
very large as to hinder me from reading it over from begin-
ning to end, for my own satisfaction, without consulting the
Sorbonne on the matter.

Were it not, however, for the dread of being presumptuous
myself, I really think that I would be disposed to adopt the
opinion which has been formed by the most of my acquaint-
ances, who, though they have believed hitherto on common
report that the propositions were in Jansenius, begin now to
suspect the contrary, owing to this strange refusal to point
them out — a refusal, the more extraordinary to me, as I have
not yet met with a single individual who can say that he has
liscovered them in that work. I am afraid, therefore, that
this censure will do more harm than good, and that the im-
pression which it will leave on the minds of all who know its
history will be just the reverse of the conclusion that has
benn come to. The truth is, the world has become sceptical
of late, and will not believe things till it- sees them. But,
as I said before, this point is of very little moment, as it has
no cone era with religion.1

1 And Tt " the question of fact." which Pascal professes to treat so
, became the turning point of all the subsequent persecutions rti-

144 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

The question of right, from its affecting the faith, appears
mijch more important, and, accordingly, I took particular
pains in examining it. You will be relieved, however, to find
that it is of as little consequence as the former.

The point of dispute here, was an assertion of M. Arnauld's
in the same letter, to the effect, " that the grace without
which we can do nothing, was wanting to St. Peter at his
fall." You and I supposed that the controversy here would
turn upon the great principles of grace ; such as, whethei
grace is given to all men ? or, if it is efficacious of itself ":
But we were quite mistaken. You must know I have be-
come a great theologian within this short time ; and now for
the proofs of it !

To ascertain the matter with certainty, I repaired to my

neighbor, M. N , doctor of Navarre, who, as you are

aware, is one of the keenest opponents of the Jansenists, and
my curiosity having made me almost as keen as himself, I
asked him if they would not formally decide at once that
"grace is given to all men," and thus set the question at
rest. But he gave me a sore rebuff, and told me that that
was not the point ; that there were some of his party who
held that grace was not given to all ; that the examiners
themselves had declared, in a full assembly of the Sorbonne,
that that opinion was problematical ; and that he himself
held the same sentiment, which he confirmed by quoting to
me what he called that celebrated passage of St. Augustine :
"We know that grace is not given to all men."

I apologized for having misapprehended his sentiment, and
requested him to say if they would not at least condemn tha
other opinion of the Jansenists which is making so much
noise, "That grace is efficacious of itself, and invincibly de-

reeted against the unhappy Port-Royalists ! Those who have read the
sad tale of the demolition of Port- Royal, will recollect, with a sigh, the
sufferings inflicted on the poor scholars and pious nuns of that estab-
lishment, solely on the ground that, from respect to Jansenius and to <v
good conscience, they would not subscribe a formulary acknowledging
the five propositions to be contained in his book. — (See Narrative of
the Demolition of the Monastery of Port-P.oy.l, by Mary Anne Schina-
melpennrnck p. 1~0. &c.)

DISPUTES IN THE SORBONNE. 145

t ermines our will to what is good." But in this second query
I was equally unfortunate. " You know nothing about the
matter," lie said; "that is not a heresy — it is an orthodox
opinion ; all the Thoraists1 maintain it ; and I myself have
defended it in my Sorbonic thesis."*

I did not venture again to propose my doubts, and yet I
was as far as ever from understanding where the difficulty
lay ; so, at last, in order to get at it, I begged him to tell
me where, then, lay the heresy of M. Arnauld's proposition?
" It lies here," said he, " that he does not acknowledge that
the righteous have the power of obeying the commandments
of God, in the manner in which we understand it."

On receiving this piece of information, I took my leave of
him ; and, quite proud at having discovered the knot of the
question, I sought M. N , who is gradually getting bet-
ter, and was sufficiently recovered to conduct me to the house
of his brother-in-law, who is a Jansenist, if ever there was
one, but a very good man notwithstanding. Thinking to in-
sure myself a better reception, I pretended to be very high
on what I took to be his side, and said : " Is it possible that
the Sorbonne has introduced into the Church such an error
as this, ' that all the righteous have always the power of
obeying the commandments of God ?'"

" What say you ?" replied the doctor. " Call you that an
error — a sentiment so Catholic that none but Lutherans and
Calvinists impugn it?"

" Indeed !" said I, surprised in my turn ; " so you are not
of their opinion ?"

1 The Thomists were so called after Thomas Aquinas, the celebrated
" Angelic Doctor" of the schools. He flourished in the thirteenth cen-
tury, and was opposed in the following century, by Duns Scotus a
British, some say a Scottish, monk of the order of St. Francis. Thia
crave rise to a fierce and protracted controversy, in the course of which
the Franciscans took the side of Duns Scotus, and were called Scotists;
while the Dominicans espoused the cause of Thomas Aquinas, and
Jrere sometimes called Thomists.

* Sorbonique — an act or thesis of divinity, delivered in the hall of the
college of the Sorbonne by candidates for the degree of doctor.

146 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

" No," he replied ; " we anathematize it as heretical and
impious."

Confounded by this reply, I soon discovered that I had
overacted the Jansenist, as I had formerly overdone the
Molinist.5 But not being sure if I had rightly understood
him, I requested him to tell me frankly if he held " that tho
righteous have always a real power to observe the divine
precepts ?" Upon this the good man got warm (but it was
with a holy zeal), and protested that h° would not disguise
his sentiments on any consideration — that such was, indeed,
his belief, and that he and all his party would defend it to
the death, as the pure doctrine of St. Thomas, and of St.
Augustine their master.

This was spoken so seriously as to leave me no room foi
doubt ; and under this impression I returned to my first doc-
tor, and said to him, with an air of great satisfaction, that I
was sure there would be pence in the Sorbonne very soon ;
that the Jansenists were quite at one with them in reference
to the power of the righteous to obey the commandments of
God ; that I could pledge my word for them, and could
make them seal it with their blood.

" Hold there !" said he. " One must be a theologian to
see the point of this question. The difference between us is
so subtle, that it is with some difficulty we can discern it our-
selves— you will find it rather too much for your powers of
comprehension. Content yourself, then, with knowing that
it is very true the Jansenists will tell you that all the right-
eous have always the power of obeying the commandments
that is not the point in dispute between us ; but mark you,

1 The Jansenists, in their dread of being classed with Lutherans and
Cdlvinists. condescended to quibble on this question. In reality, as we
shall see. they agreed with the Reformers for they denied that any could
actually obey the commandments without efficacious grace.

a Molinist. The Jesuits were so called, in this dispute, after Lewis
Molina a famous Jesuit of Spain, who published a work, entitled Con-
cordia Gratiee et Liberi Arbitrii in which he professed to have found
out a new way of reconciling the freedom of the human will with the
divine prescience. This new invention was termed Scientia Media, or
middle knowledge, All who adopted the sentiments of Molina, whethe
Jesuits or not, were termed Molinists.

PROXIMATE POWER. 147

Chey will not tell you that that power is proximate. That
is the point."

This was a new and unknown word to me. Up to this
moment I had managed to understand matters, but that term
involved me in obscurity ; and I verily believe that it has
been invented for no other purpose than to mystify. I re-
quested him to give me an explanation of it, but he made a
mystery of it, and sent me back, without any further satisfac-
tion, to demand of the Jansenists if they would admit this
proximate power. Having charged my memory with the
phrase (as to my understanding, that was out of the ques-
tion), I hastened with all possible expedition, fearing that I
might forget it, to my Jansenist friend, and accosted him,
immediately after our first salutations, with : " Tell me, pray,
if you admit the proximate power ?" He smiled, and replied,
coldly : " Tell me yourself in what sense you understand it,
and I may then inform you what I think of it." As my
knowledge did not extend quite so far, I was at a loss what
reply to make ; and yet, rather than lose the object of my
visit, I said at random : " Why, I understand it in the sense
of the Molmists." " To which of the Molinists do you refer
me ?" replied he, with the utmost coolness. I referred him
to the whole of them together, as forming one body, and
animated by one spirit.

" You know very little about the matter," returned he.
" So far are they from being united in sentiment, that some
of them are diametrically opposed to each other. But, being
all united in the design to ruin M. Arnauld, they have re-
solved to agree on this term proximate, which both parties
might use indiscriminately, though they understand it di-
versely, that thus, by a similarity of language, and an appa-
rent conformity, they may form a large body, and get up a
majority to crush him with the greater certainty."

This reply filled me with amazement ; but without imbi-
bing these impressions of the malicious designs of the Moli-
nists. which I am unwilling to believe on his word, and with
which I have no concern, I set myself simply to ascertain the

148 PROVINCIAL. LETTERS.

various senses which they give to that mysterious word prox-
imate. " I would enlighten you on the subject with all my
heart," he said; " but you would discover in it such a mass
of contrariety and contradiction, that you would hardly be-
lieve me. You would suspect me. To make sure of the
matter, you had better learn it from some of themselves ; and
I shall give you some of their addresses. You have only to
make a separate visit to one called M. le Moine,1 and to
Father Nicolai."9

" I have no acquaintance with any of these persons,"
said I.

" Let me see, then," he replied, " if you know any of those
whom 1 shall name to you ; they all agree in sentiment with
M. le Moine."

I happened, in fact, to know some of them.

" Well, let us see if you are acquainted with any of the
Dominicans whom they call the ' New Thomists,'3 for they
are all the same with Father Nicolai."

I knew some of them also whom he named ; and, resolved
to profit by this counsel, and to investigate the matter, I
took my leave of him, and went immediately to one of the

1 Pierre le Moine WHS a doctor of the Sorbonne. whom Cardinal
Richelieu employed to write against Jansenius. This Jesuit was the
author of several works, which display considerable talent, though little
principle. His book on Grace was forcibly answered, and himself
somewhat severely handled, in a work entitled l; An Apology for the
Holy Fathers." which he suspected to be written by Arnauld. It was
Le Moine who, according to Nicole, had the chief share in raising the
storm against Arnauld. of whom he was the bitter and avowed enemy.

a Father Nicolai was a Dominican — an order of friars who professed
10 be followers of St. Thomas. He is here mentioned as a representa-
tive of his class; but Nicole informs us that he abandoned the princi-
jlee of his order, and became a Molinist. or an abettor of Pelagianism.

• New TTiomisls. It is more difficult to trace or remember the vari-
•. us sects into which the Roman Church is divided, than those of the
Protestant Church. The New Thomists were the disciples of Die«ro
Alvarez, a theologian of the order of St. Dominic who flourishpd in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was sent from Spain to Ro-ne
in 159fi. to defend the doctrine of grace against Molina and distin-
guished himself in the Congregation De Auxiliis. The New Thomists
contended for efficacious <rrace. but admitted at the same time, a snfft-
rient grace, which was given to all. and yet not sufficient for any actua'
performance without the efficacious. The ridiculous incongruity of this>
joctrine is admirably exposed by Pascal in his second letter.

PROXIMATE POWER. 149

disciples of M. le Moine. I begged him to inform me what
it was to have the proximate power of doing a thing.

" It is easy to tell you that," he replied ; " it is merely to
have all that is necessary for doing it in such a manner that
nothing is wanting to performance."

" And so," said I, " to have the proximate power of cross-
ing a river, for example, is to have a boat, boatmen, oars,
and all thf, rest, so that nothing is wanting ?"

" Exactly so," said the monk.

" And to have the proximate power of seeing," continued
T, " must be to have good eyes and the light of day ; for a
person with good sight in the dark would not have the prox-
imate power of seeing, according to you, as he would want
the light, without which one cannot see ?"

" Precisely," said he.

" And consequently," returned I, " when you say that all
the righteous have the proximate power of observing the
commandments of God, you mean that they have always all
the grace necessary for observing them, so that nothing is
wanting to them on the part of God."

" Stay there," he replied ; " they have always all that is
necessary for observing the commandments, or at least for
asking it of God."

" I understand you," said I ; " they have all that is neces-
sary for praying to God to assist them, without requiring any
new grace from God to enable them to pray."

" You have it now," he rejoined.

" But is it not necessary that they have an efficacious
prace, in order to pray to God ?"

" No," said he ; " not according to M. le Moine."

To lose no time, I went to the Jacobins,1 and requested

1 Jacobins, another name for the Dominicans in France, where they
W..TC so called from the street in Paris. Rue de St. Jacques where their
6rst convent was erected, in the year 121H. In England they were
tailed Black Friars. Their four,der was Dominick, a Spaniard. His
mother, it is said, dreamt, before his birth, that she was 'to be delivered
of a wolf with a torch in his mouth. The augury was realized in the
wirbarous humor of Dominick, and the massacres which he occasicnud
m varbus parts of the world, by preaching up crusades against the

150 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

an interview with some whom I knew to be New Thomists,
and I begged them tor tell me what "proximate power''
was. " Is it not," said I, " that power to which nothing is
wanting in order to act ?"

" No," said they.

" Indeed ! fathers," said T ; "if anything is wanting to that
power, do you call it proximate ? Would you say, for in-
stance, that a man in the night time, and without any light,
had the proximate power of seeing ?"

" Yes, indeed, he would have it, in our opinion, if he is
not blind."

" I grant that," said I ; " but M. le Moine understands it
in a different manner."

" Very true," they replied ; " but so it is that we under-
stand it."

" I have no objections to that," I said ; " for I never quar-
rel about a name, provided I am apprized of the sense in
•which it is understood. But I perceive from this, that when
you speak of the righteous having always the proximate
power of praying to God, you understand that they require
another supply for praying, without which they will never
pray."

" Most excellent !" exclaimed the good fathers, embracing
me ; " exactly the thing ; for they must have, besides, an
efficacious grace bestowed upon all, and which determines
their wills to pray ; and it is heresy to deny the necessity of
that efficacious grace in order to pray."

" Most excellent !" cried I, in return ; " but, according to
you, the Jansenists are Catholics, and M. le Moine a heretic ;
for the Jansenists maintain that, while the righteous have
power to pray, they require nevertheless an efficacious grace ;
and this is what you approve. M. le Moine, again, maintains
that the righteous may pray without efficacious grace ; and
this is what you condemn."

Heretics. He was the founder of the Inquisition, and his order was, b»
fore the Reformation what the Jesuits were after it — the soul of the
tomish hierarchy, and the bitterest enemies of the truth.

PROXIMATE POWER. 151

" Ay," said they ; " but M. le Moine calls that power
proximate power."

" How now ! fathers," I exclaimed ; " this is merely play-
ing with words, to say that you are agreed as to the common
terms which you employ, while you differ with them as to
the sense of these terms."

The fathers made no reply ; and at this juncture, who
should come in but my old friend the disciple of M. le Moine !
I regarded this at the time as an extraordinary piece of good
fortune ; but I have discovered since then that such meetings
are not rare — that, in fact, they are constantly mixing in
each other's society.1

" I know a man," said I, addressing myself to M. le
Moine's disciple, " who holds that all the righteous have al-
ways the power of praying to God, but that, notwithstanding
this, they will never pray without an efficacious grace which
determines them, and which God does not always give to all
the righteous. Is he a heretic?"

" Stay," said the doctor ; " you might take me by sur-
prise. Let us go cautiously to work. Distinguo? If he
call that power proximate power, he will be a Thomist, and
therefore a Catholic; if not, he will be a Jansenist, and
therefore a heretic."

" He calls it neither proximate nor non-proximate," said I.

" Then he is a heretic," quoth he ; "I refer you to these
good fathers if he is not."

I did not appeal to them as judges, for they had already
aodded assent ; but I said to them : " He refuses to admit
that word proximate, because he can meet with nobody who
will explain ;t to him."

1 This is a sry hit at the Dominicans for combining with their natural
enemies the Jesuits, in order to accomplish the ruin of M. Arnauld.

a Digtin&uo. " I draw a distinction" — a humorous allusion to the
tndless distinctions of the Aristotelian school, in which the writings of
the Casuists abounded, and by means cf which they may be said to
Live more frequently eluded than elucidated the truth. M. le Moine
wap particularly famous for these distinsruos frequently introducing
href or rour of them in succession on one head ; and the disciple in the
ex.f <s m.i.L to echo the favorite phrase of his master.

152 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Upon this one of the fathers was on the point of offering
his definition of the term, when he was interrupted by M. le
Moine's disciple, who said to him : " Do you mean, then, to
renew our broils ? Have we not agreed not to explain thai
word proximate, but to use it on both sides without saying
what it signifies ?" To this the Jacobin gave his assent.

I was thus let into the whole secret of their plot ; and ris-
ing to take my leave of them, I remarked : " Indeed, fathers,
I am much afraid this is nothing better than pure chicanery ;
and whatever may be the result of your convocations, I ven-
ture to predict that, though the censure should pass, peace
will not be established. For though it should be decided
that the syllables of that word proximate should be pro-
nounced, who does not see that, the meaning not being
explained, each of you will be disposed to claim the victory ?
The Jacobins will contend that the word is to be understood
in their sense ; M. le Moine will insist that it must be taken
in his ; and thus there will be more wrangling about the ex-
planation of the word than about its introduction. For, aftei
all, there would be no great danger in adopting it without
any sense, seeing it is through the sense only that it can do
any harm. But it would be unworthy of the Sorbonne and
of theology to employ equivocal and captious terms withoul
giving any explanation of them. In short, fathers, tell me.
I entreat you, for the last time, what is necessary to be be-
lieved in order to be a good Catholic ?"

"You must say," they all vociferated simultaneously,
" that all the righteous have the proximate power, abstracting
from it all sense — from the sense of the Thomists and the
sense of other divines."

" That is to say," I replied, in taking leave of them, " thai
I must pronounce that word to avoid being the heretic of a
name. For, pray, is this a Scripture word ?" " No," said
they. " Is it a word of the Fathers, the Councils, or tin-
Popes ?" " No." " Is the word, then, used by St. Thomas ?"
'* No." " What necessity, therefore, is there for using it
since it has neither the authority of others nor any sense of

PROXIMATE POWER. 153

Itself?" " Tou are an opinionative fellow," said they ; " but
you shall say it, or you shall be a heretic, and M. Arnuuld
into the bargain ; for we are the majority, and should it be
necessary, we can bring a sufficient number of Cordeliers1
into the field to carry the dav."

On hearing this solid argument, I took my leave of them,
to write you the foregoing account of my interview, from
which you will perceive that the following points remain un-
disputed and u?\i'cndemiied by either party. First, That grace
is not given to all meu. Second, That all the righteous have al-
ways the power of obeying the divine commandments. Third,
That they require, nevertheless, in order to obey them, and
even to pray, an efficacious grace, which invincibly determines
their will. Fourth, That this efficacious grace is not always
granted to all the righteous, and that it depends on the pure
mercy of God. So that, after all, the truth is safe, and noth-
ing runs any risk but that word without the sense, proximate.

Happy the people who are ignorant of its existence ! —
happy those who lived before it was born ! — for I see no
help for it, unless the gentlemen of the Academy,2 by an act
of absolute authority, banish that barbarous term, which
causes so many divisions, from beyond the precincts of the
Sorbonne. Unless this be done, the censure appears certain ;
but I can easily see that it will do no other harm than di-
minish the credit3 of the Sorbonne, and deprive it of that
authority which is so necessary to it on other occasions.

Meanwhile, I leave you at perfect liberty te hold by the
word proximate or not, just as you please ; for I love you
too much to persecute you under that pretext. If this ac-
count is not displeasing to you, I shall continue to apprize
you of all that happens. — I am, &c.

1 Cordeliers, a designation of the Franciscans, or monks of the order
jf St. Francis.

2 The Royal Academy, which compiled the celebrated dictionary of
the French language, and was held at that time to be the great umpire
in literature.

3 The edition of 1657 had it Rendre la Sorbonne meprisable — " Ren-
der the Sorbonne contemptible" — an expression much more just, but
which the editors durst not allow to remain in the subsequent editions

LETTER II.

OF SUFFICIENT GRACE.

PARIS, January 29, 1656.

SIB, — Just as I had sealed up my last letter, I received a

visit from our old friend M. N . Nothing could have

happened more luckily for my curiosity ; for he is thoroughly
informed in the questions of the day, and is completely in
the secret of the Jesuits, at whose houses, including those of
their leading men, he is a constant visitor. After having
talked over the business which brought him to my house, I
asked him to state, in a few words, what were the points in
dispute between the two parties.

He immediately complied, and informed me that the prin-
cipal points were two — the first about the proximate power,
and the second about sufficient grace. I have enlightened
you on the first of these points in my former letter, and shall
now speak of the second.

In one word, then, I found that their difference about suf-
ficient grace may be defined thus : The Jesuits maintain that
there is a grace given generally to all men, subject in such a
way to free-will that the will renders it efficacious or ineffica-
cious at its pleasure, without any additional aid from God,
and without wanting anything on his part in order to acting
effectively ; and hence they term this grace sufficient, because
it suffices of itself for action. The Jansenists, on the other
hand, will not allow that any grace is actually sufficient which
is not also efficacious ; that is, that all those kinds of grace
which do not determine the will to act effectively are insuffi-
cient for action ; for they hold that a man can never act with-
out efficacious grace.

Such are the points in debate between the Jesuits and the

OF SUFFICIENT GRACE. 155

}./• » . sts ; and my next object was to ascertain the doctrine
of v*i« New Thomists.1 "It is rather an odd one," he
said : " *Jiey agree with the Jesuits in admitting a sufficient
grace gi\ en to all men ; but they maintain, at the same time,
that no man can act with this grace alone, but that, in order
to this, he must receive from God an efficacious grace which
really determines his will to the action, and which God does
not grant to all men." " So that, according to this doc-
trine," said I, "this grace is sufficient without being suffi-
cient." " Exactly so," he replied ; " for if it suffices, there
is no need of anything more for acting ; and if it does not
suffice, why — it is not sufficient."

" But," asked I, " where, then, is the difference between
them and the Jansenists ?" " They differ in this," he re-
plied, " that the Dominicans have this good qualification, that
they do not refuse to say that all men have the sufficient
grace." " I understand you," returned I ; " but they say it
without thinking it ; for they add that, in order to action, we
must have an efficacious (/race which is not given to all ; con-
sequently, if they agree with the Jesuits in the use of a terra
which has no sense, they differ from them, and coincide with
the Jansenists in the substance of the thing." " That is
very true," said he. " How, then," said I, " are the Jesuits
united with them ? and why do they not combat them as
well as the Jansenists, since they will always find powerful
antagonists in these men, who, by maintaining the necessity
of the efficacious grace which determines the will, will pre-
reni them from establishing that grace which they hold to
oe cf itself sufficient ?"

"The Dominicans are too powerful," he replied, "and the
Jesuits are too politic, to come to an open rupture with them.
The Society is content with having prevailed on them so
far as to admit the name of sufficient grace, though they
understand it in another sense ; by which manoeuvre they
gain this advantage, that they will make their opinion appear
untenable, as soon as they judge it proper to do so. And
The Dominicans.

156 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

this will be no difficult matter; for, let it be once granted
that all men have the sufficient graces, nothing can be more
natural than to conclude, that the efficacious grace is not ne-
cessary to action — the sufficiency of the general grace pre-
cluding the necessity of all others. By saying sufficient we
express all that is necessary for action ; and it will serve little
purpose for the Dominicans to exclaim that they attach an-
other sense to the expression ; the people, accustomed to the
common acceptation of that term, would not even listen to
their explanation. Thus the Society gains a sufficient advan-
tage from the expression which has been adopted by the
Dominicans, without pressing them any further; and were
you but acquainted with what passed under Popes Clement
VIII. and Paul V., and knew how the Society was thwarted
by the Dominicans in the establishment of the sufficient
grace, you would not be surprised to find that it avoids em-
broiling itself in quarrels with them, and allows them to hold
their own opinion, provided thai, of the Society is left un-
touched ; and more especially, when the Dominicans coun-
tenance its doctrine, by agreeing to employ, on all public oc-
casions, the term sufficient grace.

" The Society," he continued, " is quite satisfied with their
complaisance. It does not insist on their denying the neces-
sity of efficacious grace; this would be urging them too far.
People should not tyrannize over their friends ; and the Jes-
uits have gained quite enough. The world is content with
words ; few think of searching into the nature of things ; and
thus the name of sufficient grace being adopted on both sides,
though in different senses, there is nobody, except the most
subtle theologians, who ever dreams of doubting that the
thing signified by that word is held by the Jacobins as well
as by the Jesuits ; and the result will show that these last are
pot the greatest dupes."'

I acknowledged that they were a shrewd class of people,

1 Et la suite ftra voir que ces derniers ne sont pas Its plus dupes
This clause which appears in the last Paris edition, is wanting in th
ordinary editions. The following sentence seems to require it

OF SUFFICIENT GRACE. 1/77

Ihese Jesuits ; and, availing myself of his advice, I went
straight to the Jacobins, at whose gate I found one of my
good friends, a staunch Jansenist (for you must know I have
got friends among all parties), who was calling for another
monk, different from him whom I was in search of. I pre-
vailed on him, however, after much entreaty, to accompany
me, and asked for one of my New Thomists. He was de-
lighted to see me again. " How now ! my dear father," 1
began, " it seems it is not enough that all men have a proxi-
mate power, with which they can never act with effect; they
must have besides this a sufficient grace, with which they
can act as little. Is not that the doctrine of your school ?"
"It is," said the worthy monk ; "and I was upholding it
this very morning in the Sorbonne. I spoke on the point
during my whole half-hour ; and but for the sand-glass, I
bade fair to have reversed that wicked proverb, now so cur-
rent in Paris : ' He votes without speaking, like a monk in the
Sorbonne.' " ' " What do you mean by your half-hour and
your sand-glass ?" I asked ; " do they cut your speeches by
a certain measure ?" " Yes," said he, " they have done so
for some days past." " And do they oblige you to speak
for half an hour ?" " No ; we may speak as little as we
please." " But not as much as you please," said I. " 0
what a capital regulation for the boobies ! what a blessed
excuse for those who have nothing worth the saying ! But,
to return to the point, father ; this grace given to all men is
sufficient, is it not ?" " Yes," said he. " And yet it has no
effect without efficacious grace ?" " None whatever," he re-
plied. " And all men have the sufficient," continued I, "and
all have not the efficacious ?" " Exactly," said he. " That
is," returned I, " all have enough of grace, and all have not

1 H opine du bonnet comme un moine en Sorbonne — literally. " He
/otes with his cap like a monk in the Sorbonne" — alluding to the cus-
tom in that place of taking off the cap when a member was not disposed
to speak, or in token of agreement with the rest. The half-hour sand-
glass was a trick of the Jesuits or Molinist party to prevent their oppo-
nents from entering closely into the merLs of the controversy, which
required frequent references to the fathers. (Nicole, i. 184.)

158 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

enough of it — thai is, this grace suffices, though it does not
suffice — that is, it is sufficient in name, and insufficient in
effect! In good sooth, father, this is particularly suhtle
doctrine ! Have you forgotten, since you retired to the clois-
ter, the meaning attached, in the world you have quitted,
to the word sufficient ? — don't you remember that it includes
all that is necessary for acting ? ]>ut no, you cannot have
lost all recollection of it ; for, to avail myself of an illustra-
tion which will come home more vividly to your feelings, let
us suppose that you were supplied with no more than two
ounces of bread and a glass of water daily, would you be
quite pleased with your prior were he to tell vou that thi3
would be sufficient to support you, under the pretext that,
along with something else, which, however, he would net
give you, you would have all that would be necessary to
support you ? How, then, can you allow yourselves to say
that all men have sufficient grace for acting, while you admit
that there is another grace absolutely necessary to acting
which all men have not ? Is it because this is an unimpor-
tant article of belief, and you leave all men at liberty to be-
lieve that efficacious grace is necessary or not, as they choose ?
Is it a matter of indifference to say, that with sufficient grace
a man may really act ?" " How !" cried the good man ;
" indifference ! — it is heresy — formal heresy. The necessity
of efficacious grace for acting effectively, is a point of faith —
it is heresy to deny it."

" Where are we now ?" I exclaimed ; " and which side am
I to take here ? If I deny the sufficient grace, I am a Jan
senist. If I admit it, as the Jesuits do, in the way of deny-
ing that efficacious grace is necessary, I shall be a heretic,
cay you. And if I admit it, as you do, in the way of main-
taining the necessity of efficacious grace, I sin against com-
mon sense, and am a blockhead, say the Jesuits. What must
I do, thus reduced to the inevitable necessity of being a
blockhead, a heretic, or a Jansenist? And what a sad pas&
are matters come to, if there are none but the Jansenists who
avoid coming into collision either with the faith or with rea-

OF SUFFICIENT GRACE- 159

ion, and who save themselves at once from absurdity and
from error !"

My Jansenist friend took this speech as a good omen, and
llready looked upon me as a convert. He said nothing to
me, however ; but, addressing the monk : " Pray, father,"
inquired he, " what is the point on which you agree with the
Jesuits ?" " We agree in this," he replied, " that the Jes
uits and we acknowledge the sufficient grace given to all.'
" But," said the Jansenist, " there are two things in this ex-
pression sufficient grace — there is the sound, which is only so
much breath ; and there is the thing which it signifies, which
is real and effectual. And, therefore, as you are agreed with
the Jesuits in regard to the word sufficient, and opposed to
them as to the sense, it is apparent that you are opposed to
them in regard to the substance of that term, and that you
only agree with them as to the sound. Is this what you
call acting sincerely and cordially ?"

" But," said the good man, " what cause have you to com-
plain, since we deceive nobody by this mode of speaking ? In
our schools we openly teach that we understand it in a man-
ner different from the Jesuits."

"What I complain of," returned my friend, "is, that you
do not proclaim it everywhere, that by sufficient grace you
understand the grace which is not sufficient. You are bound
in conscience, by thus altering the sense of the ordinary terms
of theology, to tell that, when you admit a sufficient grace in
all men, you understand that they have not sufficient grace
n effect. All classes of persons in the world understand the
word sufficient in one and the same sense ; the New Thom-
ists alone understand it in another sense. All the women,
who form one-half of the world, all courtiers, all military
men, all magistrates, all lawyers, merchants, artisans, the
whole populace — in short, all sorts of men, except the Do-
minicans, understand the word sufficient to express all that
is necessary. Scarcely any one is aware of this singular ex-
leption. It is reported over the whole earth, simply that
Dominicans hold that all men have the sufficient graces.

100 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

What other conclusion can be drawn from this, than that they
hold that all men have all the graces necessary for action ;
especially when they are seen joined in interest and intrigue
with the Jesuits, who understand the thing in that sense ?
Is not the uniformity of your expressions, viewed in connec-
tion with this union of -party, a manifest indication and con-
firmation of the uniformity of your sentiments ?

" The multitude of the faithful inquire of theologians :
What is the real condition of human nature since its corrup-
tion? St. Augustine and his disciples reply, that it has no
sufficient grace until God is pleased to bestow it. Next
come the Jesuits, and they say that all have the effectually
sufficient graces. The Dominicans are consulted on this con-
trariety of opinion ; and what course do they pursue ? They
unite with the Jesuits ; by this coalition they make up a
majority ; they secede from those who deny these sufficient
graces ; they declare that all men possess them. Who, on
hearing this, would imagine anything else than that they
gave their sanction to the opinion of the Jesuits ? And then
they add that, nevertheless, these said sufficient graces are
perfectly useless without the efficacious, which are not given
to all !

" Shall I present you with a picture of the Church amidst
these conflicting sentiments ? I consider her very like a man
who, leaving his native country on a journey, is encountered
by robbers, who inflict many wounds on him, and leave him
half dead. He sends for three physicians resident in the
neighboring towns. The first, on probing his wounds, pro-
nounces them mortal, and assures him that none but God
can restore to him his lost powers. The second, coming
after the other, chooses to flatter the man — tells him that he
has still sufficient strength to reach his home ; and, abusing
the first physician who opposed his advice, determines upon
his ruin. In this dilemma, the poor patient, observing the
third medical gentleman at a distance, stretches out his hands
to him as the person who should determine the controversy
This practitioner, on examining his wounds, and ascertaining

OF SUFFICIENT GRACE. 161

the opinions of the first two doctors, embraces that of the
second, and uniting with him, the two combine against the
first, and being the stronger party in number drive him from
the field in disgrace. From this proceeding, the patient
naturally concludes that the last comer is of the same opin-
ion with the second ; and, on putting the question to him,
he assures him most positively that his strength is sufficient
for prosecuting his journey. The wounded man, however,
sensible of his own weakness, begs him to explain to him how
he considered him sufficient for the journey. 'Because/ re-
plies his adviser, ' you are still in possession of your legs,
and legs are the organs which naturally suffice for walking.'
1 But,' says the patient, ' have I all the strength necessary to
make use of my legs ? for, in my present weak condition, it
humbly appears to me that they are wholly useless.' ' Cer-
tainly you have not,' replies the doctor; ' you will never walk
effectively, unless God vouchsafes some extraordinary assist-
ance to sustain and conduct you.' ' What !' exclaims the
poor man, ' do you not mean to say that I have sufficient
strength in me, so as to want for nothing to walk effectively ?'
' Very far from it,' returns the physician. ' You must, then,'
Bays the patient, 'be of a different opinion from your com-
panion there about my real condition.' ' I must admit that
I am,' replies the other.

" What do you suppose the patient said to this ? Why,
he complained of the strange conduct and ambiguous terms
of this third physician. He censured him for taking part
with the second, to whom he was opposed in sentiment, and
with whom he had only the semblance of agreement, and for
having driven away the first doctor, with whom he in reality
agreed; and, after making a trial of his strength, and finding
by experience his actual weakness, he sent them both about
their business, recalled his first adviser, put himself under
his care, and having, by his advice, implored from God the
strength of which he confessed his need, obtained the mercy he
Bought, and, through divine help, reached his house in peace."

The worthy monk was so confounded with this parable that

162 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

he could not find words to reply. To cheer him up a little,
I said to him, in a mild tone : " But after all, my dear father,
what made you think of giving the name of sufficient to a
grace which you say it is a point of faith to believe is, in fact,
insufficient ?" " It is very easy for you to talk about it," said
he. " You are an independent and private man ; I am a monk,
and in a community — cannot you estimate the difference be-
tween the two cases ? We depend on superiors; they de-
pend on others. They have promised our votes — what would
you have to become of me ?" We understood the hint; and
this brought to our recollection the case of his brother monk,
who, for a similar piece of indiscretion, has been exiled to
Abbeville.

" But," I resumed, " how comes it about that your com-
munity is bound to admit, this grace ?" " That is another
question," he replied. " All that I can tell you is, in one
word, that our order has defended, to the utmost of its abil-
ity, the doctrine of St. Thomas on efficacious grace. With
what ardor did it oppose, from the very commencement, the
doctrine of Molina ? How did it labor to establish the ne-
cessity of the efficacious grace of Jesus Christ ? Don't you
know what happened under Clement YIII. and Paul V., and
how the former having been prevented by death, and the
latter hindered by some Italian affairs from publishing his
bull, our arms still sleep in the Vatican ? But the Jesuits,
availing themselves, since the introduction of the heresy of
Luther and Calvin, of the scanty light which the people pos-
sess for discriminating between the error of these men and
the truth of the doctrine of St. Thomas, disseminated their
principles with such rapidity and success, that they became,
ere long, masters of the popular belief ; while we, on our
\>art, found ourselves in the predicament of being denounced
t>s Calvinists, and treated as the Jansenists are at present, un-
less we qualified the efficacious grace with, at least, the ap-
parent avowal of a sufficient.1 In this extremity, what bet-

1 "It is certain," says Baylc, " that the obligation which the Romisfc
Church is under to respect the doctrine of St. Augustine on the subject

OF SUFFICIENT GRACE. 103

ter course could we have taken for saving the truth, without
*osing our own credit, than by admitting the name of suffi-
cient grace, while we denied that it was such in effect? Such
is the real history of the case."

This was spoken in such a melancholy tone, that I really
Degan to pity the man ; not so, however, my companion.
" Flatter not yourselves," said he to the monk, "with hav-
ing saved the truth ; had she not found other defenders, in
your feeble hands she must have perished. By admitting
into the Church the name of her enemy, you have admitted
the enemy himself. Names are inseparable from things. If
the term sufficient grace be once established, it will be vain
for you to protest that you understand by it a grace which is
not sufficient. Your protest will be held inadmissible. Your
explanation would be scouted as odious in the world, where
men speak more ingenuously about matters of infinitely less
moment. The Jesuits will gain a triumph — it will be their
grace, which is sufficient, in fact, and not yours, which is only
so in name, that will pass as established ; and the converse
of your creed will become an article of faith."

" We will all suffer martyrdom first," cried the father,
" rather than consent to the establishment of sufficient grace
in the sense of the Jesuits. St. Thomas, whom, we have

of grace, in consequence of its having received the sanction of Popes
and Councils at various times, placed it in a very awkward and ridicu-
lous situation. It is so obvious to every man who examines the matter
without prejudice, and with the necessary means of information, that
the doctrine of Augustine and that of Jansenius are one and the same,
that it is impossible to see, without feelings of indignation, the Court of
Rome boasting of having condemned Jansenius, and nevertheless pre-
serving to St. Augustine all his glory. The two things are utterly irre-
concilable. What is more, the Council of Trent, by condemning the
doctrine of Calvin on free-will, has, by necessity condemned that of St.
Augustine; for there is no Calvinist who has denied, or who can deny.
Ihe concourse of the human will and the liberty of the soul in the sense
which St. Augustine gives to the words concourse, co-operation -an;l
liberty. There is no Calvinist who does not acknowledge the freedom
of the will, and its use in conversion, if that word is understood accord-
ing to the ideas of St. Augustine. Those vhom the Council of Trent
londemns do not reject free-will, except as signifying the liberty of indif-
ference. The Thornists, also, reject it under this notion, and yet they
Bass for very good Catholics." (Bayle's Diet., art Augustine.)

164 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

sworn to follow even to the death, is diametrically opposed
to such doctrine."1

To this my friend, who took up the matter more seriously
than I did, replied : " Come now, father, your fraternity has
received an honor which it sadly abuses. It abandons that
grace which was confided to its care, and which has never
been abandoned since the creation of the world. That vic-
torious grace, which was waited for by the patriarchs, pre-
dicted by the prophets, introduced by Jesus Christ, preached
by St. Paul, explained by St. Augustine, the greatest of the
fathers, embraced by his followers, confirmed by St. Bernard,
the last of the fathers,8 supported by St. Thomas, the angel
of the schools,8 transmitted by him to your order, maintained
by so many of your fathers, and so nobly defended by your
monks under popes Clement and Paul — that efficacious grace,
which had been committed as a sacred deposit into your hands,
that it might find, in a sacred and everlasting order, a succes-
sion of preachers, who might proclaim it to the end of time —
is discarded and deserted for interests the most contemptible.
It is high time for other hands to arm in its quarrel. It is
time for God to raise up intrepid disciples of the Doctor of
grace,* who, strangers to the entanglements of the world,
will serve God for God's sake. Grace may not, indeed, num-
ber the Dominicans among her champions, but champions she
.shall never want ; for, by her own almighty energy, she cre-
ates them for herself. She demands hearts pure and disen-

* It is a singular fact that the Roman Church, which boasts so much
f her unity, and is ever charging the Reformed with being Calfinists,

Lutherans &c.. is in reality, divided into numerous conflicting sects,
each strorn to uphold the peculiar sentiments of its founder. If there
is one principle more essential than another to the Reformation, it is that
of entire independence of all masters in the faith: " Nullius addicUw
jurare in verba magislri."

*"The famous St. Bernard, abbot of Clairval. whose influence
throughout all Kurope was incredible — whose word was a law. and
whose counsf Is were regarded by kings and princes as so many orders
to which the most rpspectful obedience was due; this eminent ecclesiastic
was the person who contributed most to enrich and aggrandize the Cis-
tercian order." (Mosh. Eccl. Hist., cent, xii.)

* Thomas Aquinas, a scholastic divine of the thirteenth century, wht
Was termed the Angelic Doctor

* Augustine.

OF SUFFICIENT GRACE. 165

gaged ; nay, she herself purifies and disengages them from
worldly interests, incompatible with the truths of the Gospel.
Reflect seriously on this, father ; and take care that God does
not remove this candlestick from its place, leaving you in
darkness, and without the crown, as a punishment for the
coldness which you manifest to a cause so important to hia
Ciiurch."1

He might have gone on in this strain much longer, for he
was kindling as he advanced, but I interrupted him by rising
lo take my leave, and said : " Indeed, my dear father, had I
any influence in France, I should have it proclaimed, by sound
of trumpet : ' BE IT KNOWN TO ALL MEN, tJutt when the Jaco-
bins SAY that sufficient grace is given to all, they MEAN that
all have not the grace which actually suffices /' After which,
you might say it as often as you please, but not otherwise."
And thus ended our visit.

You will perceive, therefore, that we have here a politic
sufficiency somewhat similar to proximate power. Meanwhile
I may tell you, that it appears to me that both the proximate
power and this same sufficient, grace may be safely doubted
by anybody, provided he is not a Jacobin.*

I have just come to learn, when closing my letter, that the
censure3 has passed. But as I do not yet know in what
terms it is worded, and as it will not be published till the
15th of February, I shall delay writing you about it till the
next post. — I am, <fec.

1 Who can help regretting that sentiments so evangelical, so truly
noble, and so eloquently expressed, should have been held by Pasca
in connection with a Church which denounced him as a heretic for up
holding them !

a An ironical reflection on the cowardly compromise of the Jacobins,
i r Dominicans, for having pledged themselves to the us-} of the term
'•sufficient," in order to please the Jesuits.

8 The censure of the Theological Facul -y of the Sorbonne passed
Sgainst M. Arnauld, and which is fully discussed in Letter iii.

166 PROVINCIAL LEriKRS.

REPLY OF THE "PROVINCIAL" TO THE FIRST
TWO LETTERS OF HIS FRIEND.

February 2, 1656.

SIR, — Your two letters have not been confined to me.
Everybody has seen them, everybody understands them, and
everybody believes them. They are not only in high repute
among theologians — they have proved agreeable to men of
the world, and intelligible even to the ladies.

In a communication which I lately received from one of
the gentlemen of the Academy — one of the most illustrious
names in a society of men who are all ijlustrious — who had
seen only your first letter, he writes me as follows : " I only
wish that the Sorbonne, which owes so much to the memory
of the late cardinal,' would acknowledge the jurisdiction of
his French Academy. The author of the letter would be
satisfied ; for, in the capacity of an academician, I would
authoritatively condemn, I would banish, I would proscribe
— I had almost said exterminate — to the extent of my power,
this proximate power, which makes so much noise about
nothing, and without knowing what it would have. The
misfortune is, that our academic ' power' is a very limited
and remote power. I am sorry for it ; and still more sorry
that ray small power cannot discharge me from my obliga-
tions to you," &c.

My next extract is from the pen of a lady, whom I shall
not indicate in any way whatever. She writes thus to a
female friend who had transmitted to her the first of your
letters : " You can have no idea how much I am obliged to
you for the letter you sent me — it is so very ingenious, and
»o nicely written. It narrates, and vet it is not a narrative ;
It clears up the most intricate and involved of all possible

1 The Cardinal de Richelieu the celebrated founder of the French
4cademy. The Sorbonne owed its magnificence to the liberality of this
mincnt statesman who rebuilt its house enlarged its revenues, eiv
riched its library, and took it under his special patronage.

REPLY TO THE FIRST TWO LETTERS. 167

matters ; its raillery is exquisite ; it enlightens those who
know little about the subject, and imparts double delight to
those who understand it. It is an admirable apology ; and,
if they would so take it, a delicate and innocent censure.
In short, that letter displays so much art, so much spirit,
and so much judgment, that I burn with curiosity to know
who wrote it," &c.

You too, perhaps, would like to know who the lady is that
writes in this style ; but you must be content to esteem
without knowing her ; when you come to know her, your
esteem will be greatly enhanced.1

Take my word for it, then, and continue your letters; and
let the censure come when it may, we are quite prepared for
receiving it. These words, " proximate power," and " suffi-
cient grace," with which we are threatened, will frighten us
no longer. We have learned from the Jesuits, the Jacobins,
and M. le Moine, in how many different ways they may be
turned, and how little solidity there is in these new-fangled
terms, to give ourselves any trouble about them. — Mean-
while, I remain, &c.

LETTER 111.

INJUSTICE, ABSURDITY, AND NULLITY OF THE CENSURE OH
M. ARNAULD.

PARIS, February 9, 1658.

SIR, — I have just received your letter; and, at the same
time, there was brought me a copy of the censure in manu-
script. I find that I am as well treated in the former, as M,
Arnauld is ill-treated in the latter. I am afraid there is some
extravagance in both cases, and that neither of us is suffi-
ciently well known by our judges. Sure I am, that were we
better known, M. Arnauld would merit the approval of the
Sorbonne, and I the censure of the Academy. Thus our in-
terests are quite at variance with each other. It is his inter-
est to make himself known, to vindicate his innocence ;
whereas it is mine to remain in the dark, for fear of forfeiting
my reputation. Prevented, therefore, from showing my face,
I must devolve on you the task of making my acknowledg-
ments to my illustrious admirers, while I undertake that of
furnishing you with the news of the censure.

I assure yon, sir, it has filled me with astonishment. I
expected to find it condemning the most shocking heresy in
the world, but your wonder will equal mine, when informed
that these alarming preparations, when on the point of pro-
ducing the grand effect anticipated, have all ended in smoke

To understand the whole affair in a pleasant way, only
recollect, I beseech you, the strange impressions which, for
si long time past, we have been taught to form of the Jan-
senists. Recall to mind the cabals, the factions, the errors,
the schisms, the outrages, with which they have been so long
Charged; the manner in which they have been denounced

THE CENSURE. 109

and vilified from the pulpit and the press ; and the degree
to which this torrent of abuse, so remarkable for its violence
and duration, has swollen of late years, when they have been
openly and publicly accused of being not only heretics \nd
schismatics, but apostates and infidels — with " denying ihe
mystery of transubstantiation, and renouncing Jesus Christ
and the Gospel."1

After having published these startling8 accusations, it was
resolved to examine their writings, in order to pronounce
judgment on them. For this purpose the second letter of
M. Arnauld, which was reported to be full of the greatest
errors,3 is selected. The examiners appointed are his most
open and avowed enemies. They employ all their learning
to discover something that they might lay hold upon, and at
length they prr^uce one proposition of a doctrinal character,
which they exhibit for censure.

What else could any one infer from such proceedings, than
that this proposition, selected under such remarkable circum-
stances, would contain the essence of the blackest heresies
imaginable. And yet the proposition so entirely agrees with
what is clearly and formally expressed in the passages from
the fathers quoted by M. Arnauld, that I have not met
with a single individual who could comprehend the difference
between them. Still, however, it might be imagined that
there was a very great difference ; for the passages from the
fathers being unquestionably catholic, the proposition of M.
Arnauld, if heretical, must be widely opposed4 to them.

1 The charge of " denying the mystery of transubstantiation." cer-
lainly did not justly apply to the Jansenists as such ; these religious
devotees denied nothing. Their system, so far as the dogmas of the
Church were concerned, was one of implicit faith; but though Arnauld,
Nicole, and the other learned men among them, stiffly maintained the
leading tenets of the Romish Church, in opposition to those of the Re-
formers, the Jansenist creed, as held by their pious followers, was
practically at variance with transubstantiation, and many other errors
of the Church to which thev nominally belonged. (Mad. Schimmel-
penninck's Demolition of Port-Royal, pp. 77-80, &c.)

4 Atroces — '• atrocious." (Edit. 165T.")
3 Des plus detestables erreurs — " 1

' the mo»t detestable errors." (Edit
1657.) Erreurs— "errors." (Nicole's Edit., 1767.)

4 Horriblenent contraire — " horribly contrary." (Edit. 1657 )

170 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

SucL was the difficulty which the Sorbonne was expected
to clear up. All Christendom waited, with wide-opened
eyes, to discover, in the censure of these learned doctors,
the point of difference which had proved imperceptible to
ordinary mortals. Meanwhile M. Arnauld gave in his de-
fences, placing his own proposition and the passages of the
fathers from which he had drawn it in parallel columns, so
as to make the agreement between them apparent to the
most obtuse understandings.

He shows, for example, that St. Augustine says in one
passage, that " Jesus Christ points out to us, in the person
of St. Peter, a righteous man warning us by his fall to avoid
presumption." He cites another passage from the same
father, in which he says, " that God, in order to show us
that without grace we can do nothing, left St. Peter without
grace." He produces a third, from St. Chrysostom, who
says, " that the fall of St. Peter happened, not through any
coldness towards Jesus Christ, but because grace failed him ;
and that he fell, not so much through his own negligence as
through the withdrawment of God, as a lesson to the whole
Church, that without God we can do nothing." He then
gives his own accused proposition, which is as follows : " The
fathers point out to us, in the person of St. Peter, a right-
eous man to whom that grace without which we can do noth-
ing, was wanting."

In vain did people attempt to discover how it could pos-
sibly be, that M. Arnauld's expression differed from those of
the fathers as much as truth from error, and faith from
heresy. For where was the difference to be found ? Could
it be in these words, " that the fathers point out to us, in tho
person of St. Peter, a righteous man ?" St. Augustine has
said the same thing in so many words. Is it because he says
" that grace had failed him ?" The same St. Augustine,
who had said that " St. Peter was a righteous man," sayri
"that he had not had grace on that occasion." Is it, then,
for his having said, " that without grace we can do nothing ?"
Why, is not this just what St. Augustine says in the sam«

THE CENSURE.

place, and what St. Chrysostom had said before him, with
this difference only, that he expresses it in much stronge*
language, as when 'he says "that his fall did not happen
through his own coldness or negligence, but through the fail-
ure ot grace, and the withdrawment of God?"1

Such considerations as these kept everybody in a state of
breathless suspense, to learn in what this diversity could
consist, when at length, after a gveat many meetings, this
famous and long-looked for censure made its appearance.
But, alas ! it has sadly baulked our expectation. Whether
it be that the Molinist doctors would not condescend so far
as to enlighten us on the point, or for some other mysterious
reason, the fact is, they have done nothing more than pro-
nounce these words : " This proposition is rash, impious, blas-
phemous, accursed, and heretical !"

Would you believe it, sir, that most people, finding them-
selves deceived in their expectations, have got into bad hu-
mor, and begin to fall foul upon the censors themselves?
They are drawing strange inferences from their conduct in
favor of M. Arnauld's innocence. " What !" they are saying,
" is this all that could be achieved, during all this time, by
so many doctors joining in a furious attack on one individual ?
Can they find nothing in all his works worthy of reprehen-
sion, but three lines, and these extracted, word for word,
from the greatest doctors of the Greek and Latin Churches ?
Is there any author whatever whose writings, were it intended
to ruin him, would not furnish a more specious pretext for
he purpose ? And what higher proof could be furnished
of the orthodoxy of this illustrious accused ?

" How comes it to pass," they add, " that so many denun-
ciations are launched in this censure, into which they have

1 The meaning of Chrysostom is good, but the expressions of these
ancient fathers are often more remarkable for their strength than their
precision. The Protestant reader hardly needs to be reminded, that if
divine grace can be said to have failed the Apostle Peter at his fall, it
tan only be in the sense of a temporary suspension of its influences ;
tnd thai, this withdrawment of grace must be regaided as the punish-
ment and not as the cause, of his own neo-liirence.

172 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

crowded such terms as 'poison, pestilence, horror, l
impiety, blasphemy, abomination, execration, anathema, her-
esy'— the most dreadful epithets that could be used against
Arius, or Antichrist himself; and all to combat an impercep-
tible heresy, and that, moreover, without telling us what it
is ? If it be against the words of the fathers that they in-
veigh in this style, where is the faith and tradition t If
against M. Arnauld's proposition, let them point out the dif-
ference between the two ; for we can see nothing but the
most perfeet harmony between them. As soon as we have
discovered the evil of the proposition, we shall hold it in ab-
horrence ; but so long as we do not see it, or rather see
nothing in the statement but the sentiments of the holy
fathers, conceived and expressed in their own terms, how
can we possibly regard it with any other feelings than those
of holy veneration ?"

Such is a specimen of the way in which jhey are giving
vent to their feelings. But these are by far too deep think-
ing people. You and I, who make no pretensions to such
extraordinary penetration, may keep ourselves quite easy
about the whole affair. What ! would we be wiser than our
masters? No : let us take example from them, and not un-
dertake what they have not ventured upon. We would be
sure to get boggled in such an attempt. Why it would be
the easiest thing imaginable, to render this censure itself he-
retical. Truth, we know, -is so delicate, that if we make the
slightest deviation from it, we fall into error ; but this al-
leged error is so extremely fine-spun, that, if we diverge from
it in the slightest degree, we fall back upon the truth. There
is> positively nothing between this obnoxious proposition and
the truth but an imperceptible point. The distance between
them is so impalpable, that I was in terror lest, from pure
inability to perceive it, I might, in my over-anxiety to agree
with the doctors of the Sorbonne, place myself in opposition
to the doctors of the Church. Under this apprehension, I
iudged it expedient to consult one of those who, through
policy, was neutral on the first question, that from him I

THE CENSURE. 173

might learn the real state of the matter. I have accordingly
had an interview with one of the most intelligent of that
party, whom I requested to point out to me the difference
between the two things, at the same time frankly owning te
him that I could see none.

He appeared to be amused at my simplicity, and replied,
with a smile : " How simple it is in you to believe that there
is any difference ! Why, where could it be ? Do you im-
agine that, if they could have found out any discrepancy be-
tween M. Arnauld and the fathers, they would not have
boldly pointed it out, and been delighted with the opportu-
nity of exposing it before the public, in whose eyes they are
so anxious to depreciate that gentleman ?"

I could easily perceive, from these few words, that those
who had been neutral on the first question, would not all
prove so on the second ; but anxious to hear his reasons,
T asked : " Why, then, have they attacked this unfortunate
proposition ?"

" Is it possible," he replied, " you can be ignorant of these
two things, which I thought had been known to the veriest
tyro in these matters ? — that, on the one hand, M. Arnauld
has uniformly avoided advancing a single tenet which is not
powerfully supported by the tradition of the Church ; and
that, on the other hand, his enemies have determined, cost
what it may, to cut that ground from under him ; and, ac-
cordingly, that as the writings of the former afforded no
handle to the designs of the latter, they have been obliged,
r order to satiate their revenge, to seize on some proposi-
tion, it mattered not what, and to condemn it without telling
why or wherefore. Do not you know how the Jansenists
keep them in check, and annoy them so desperately, that
they cannot drop the slightest word against the principles
of *h.e fathers Avithout being incontinently overwhelmed with
whole volumes, under the pressure of which they are forced
.'o succumb ? So that, after a great many proofs of their
weakness, they have judged it more to the purpose, and

174 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

much less troublesome, to censure than to reply — it being a
much easier matter with them to find monks than reasons."1

" Why then," said I, " if this be the case, their censure is
not worth a straw ; for who will pay any regard to it, when
they see it to be without foundation, and refuted, as it no
doubt will be, by the answers given to it ?"

" If you knew the temper of people," replied my friend
the doctor, " you would talk in another sort of way. IT. eh
censure, censurable as it is, will produce nearly all its de-
signed effect for a time ; and although, by the force of de-
monstration, it is certain that, in course of time, its Invalidity
will be made apparent, it is equally true that, at first, it will
tell as effectually on the minds of most people as if it had
been the most righteous sentence in the world. Let ic only
be cried about the streets : ' Here you have the censure of
M. Arnauld ! — here you have the condemnation of the Jan-
senists !' and the Jesuits will find their account in it. How
few will ever read it ! How few of them who do read, will
understand it ! How few will observe that it answers no ob-
jections ! How few will take the matter to heart, or attempt
to sift it to the bottom ? — Mark then, how much advantage
this gives to the enemies of the Jansenists. They are sine
to make a triumph of it, though a vain one, as usi al, for
some months at least — and that is a great matter for them —
they will look out afterwards for some new means of sub-
sistence. They live from hand to mouth, sir. It is in this
way they have contrived to maintain themselves down to the
present day. Sometimes it is by a catechism in which
child is made to condemn their opponents ; then it is by a
procession, in which sufficient grace leads the efficacious in
triumph ; again it is by a comedy, in which Jansenius is rep-
resented as carried off by devils ; at another time it is by an
almanac ; and now it is by this censure."2

1 That is, they could more readily procure monks to vote against M.
Xrnauld. than arguments to answer him.

" The allusions in the text afford curious illustrations of the mode of
warfare pursued by the Jesuits of the seventeenth century. The firs
lefers to a comic catec'iism. in which the simple anguage ot'childhooo

THE CENSURE. 175

*' In good sooth, said I, " I was on the point of finding
fault with the conduct of the Molinists ; but after what you
have told me, I must say I admire their prudence and their
policy. I see perfectly well that they could not have fol-
lowed a safer or more judicious course."

" You are right," returned he ; " their safest policy has
always been to keep silent; and this led a certain learned
divine to remark, ' that the cleverest among them are those
who intrigue much, speak little, and write nothing.'

" It is on this principle that, from the commencement of
the meetings, they prudently ordained that, if M. Arnauld
came into the Sorbonne, it must be simply to explain what
he believed, and not to enter the lists of controversy with
any one. The examiners having ventured to depart a little
from this prudent arrangement, suffered for their temerity.
They found themselves rather too vigorously1 refuted by his
second apology.

" On the same principle, they had recourse to that rare and
very novel device of the half-hour and the sand-glass.5 By
this means they rid themselves of the importunity of those
troublesome doctors,3 who might undertake to refute all their
arguments, to produce books which might convict them of
forgery, to insist on a reply, and reduce them to the predica-
ment of having none to give.

was employed as a vehicle for the most calumnious charges against the
opponents of the Society. Pascal refers again to this catechism in Let-
ter xvii. The second device was a sort of school-boy masquerade. A
handsome youth, disguised as a female, in splendid attire, and bearing
the inscription of sufficient grace, dragged behind him another dressed
as a bishop (representing Jansenius, bishop of Ypres), who followed with

rude cuts for the amusement of the vulgar, the Jesuits procured the in-
sertion of a caricature of the Jansenists, who were represented as pur-
sueo by the pope, and taking refuge among the Calvinists. This, how-
ever, called forth a retaliation, in the shape of a poem, entitled "The
Prints of the Famous Jesuitical Almanac, in which tfie Jesuits were
»o successfully held up to ridicule, that they could hardly show face for
tome time in the streets of Paris. Nicole, i. p. 208.

1 Vertement — ''smartly." (Edit. 1657.)

4 See Letter ii.

s Che docteurs — " those doctors." (Edit. 1767.^

176 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

" It is not that they were so blind as not tc see that this
encroachment on liberty, which has induced s< many doctors
to withdraw from the meetings, would do m good to their
censure ; and that the protest of nullity, taken on this ground
by M. Arnauld before it was concluded, would be a bad pre-
amble for securing it a favorable reception. Thsy know very
well that unprejudiced persons place fully as much weight oo
the judgment of seventy doctors, who had nothing to gain
by defending M. Arnauld, as on that of a hundred others
who had nothing to lose by condemning him. But, upon the
whole, they considered that it would be of vast importance
to have a censure, although it should be the act of a party
only in the Sorbonne, and not of the whole body ; although
it should be carried with little or no freedom of debate, and
obtained by a great many small manoeuvres not exactly ac-
cording to order ; although it should give no explanation of
the matter in dispute ; although it should not point out in
what this heresy consists, and should say as little as possible
about it, for fear of committing a mistake. This very silence
is a mystery in the eyes of the simple ; and the censure will
reap this singular advantage from it, that they may defy the
most critical and subtle theologians to find in it a single weak
argument.

" Keep yourself easy, then, and do not be afraid of being
set down as a heretic, though you should make use of the
condemned proposition. It is bad, I assure you, only 0.3 oc-
curring in the second letter of M. Arnauld. If you will not
oelieve this statement on my word, I refer you to M. le Moine
the most zealous of the examiners, who, in the course of con
versation with a doctor of my acquaintance this very morn-
ing, on being asked by him where lay the point of difference
in dispute, and if one would no longer be allowed to say
what the fathers had said before him, made the following ex-
quisite replj : ' This proposition would be orthodox in the
mouth of any other — it is only as coming from M. Arnauld
that the Sorbonne have condemned it!' You must now be
prepared to admire the machinery of Molinism, which can

THE CEXSURE. 177>

produce such prodigious overturnings in the Church — that
what is catholic in the fathers becomes heretical in M. Ar-
nault—that what is heretical in the Semi-Pelagians becomes
orthodox in the writings of the Jesuits ; the ancient doctrine
of St. Augustine becomes an intolerable innovation, and new
inventions, daily fabricated before our eyes, pass for the an-
cient fait! of the Church." So saying, he took his leave of
me.

This information has satisfied my purpose. I gather from
it that this same heresy is one of an entirely new species. It
is not the sentiments of M. Arnauld that are heretical ; it is
only his person. This is a personal heresy. He is not a
heretic for anything he has said or written, but simply
because he is M. Arnauld. This is all they have to say
against him. Do what he may, unless he cease to be, he will
aaver be a good Catholic. The grace of St. Augustine will
never be the true grace, so long as he continues to defend it.
It would become so at once, were he to take it into his head
to impugn it. That would be a sure stroke, and almost the
only plan for establishing the truth and demolishing Molin-
ism ; such is the fatality attending all the opinions which he
embraces.

Let us leave them, then, to settle their own differences.
These are the disputes of theologians, not of theology. We,
who are no doctors, have nothing to do with their quarrels.
Tell our friends the news of the censure, and love me while
I am, &c.'

1 In Nicole's edition, this letter is signed with the initials'" E. A. A.
B. P. A. F. D. E. P." which seem merely a chance medley of letters, to
quiz those who were so anxious to discover the author. There may
have been an allusion to the absurd story of a Jansenist conference
held, it was said, at Bourg Fontaine, in 1621. todeliberate on ways and
means for abolishing Christianity ; among the persons present at which,
indicated by initials, Anthony Arnauld was ridiculously accused of hav-
.ng been one under the initials A. A. (See Bayle's Diet., art. Ant. Ar-

* Et ancien ami, Elaise Pascal, Awoergnat.flt cU Etienne Pasc.al. (M. TabW
aynaril ) — ED.

LETTER IV.

O» ACTUAL GRACE AND SINS OF IOSORASCB.

PARIS, February 25, 1656.

SIR, — Nothing can come up to the Jesuits. I have seen
Jacobins, doctors, and all sorts of people in my day, but such
an interview as I have just had was wanting to complete
my knowledge of mankind. Other men are merely copies
of them. As things are always found best at the fc untain-
head, I paid a visit to one of the ablest among them, in com-
pany with my trusty Jansenist — the same who accompanied
me to the Dominicans. Being particularly anxious to l^arn
something of a dispute which they have with the Jinsenlsts
about what they call actual grace, I said to ;he worthy rather
that I would be much obliged to him if he would instruct me
on this point — that I did not even know what the term
meant, and would thank him to explain it. " With all my
heart," the Jesuit replied ; " for I dearly love inquisitive
people. Actual grace, according to our definition, ' is an in-
spiration of God, whereby he makes us to know his will, and
excites within us a desire to perform it.' "

" And where," said I, " lies your difference with the Jan-
senists on this subject ?"

" The difference lies here," he replied ; " we hold that Go<l
bestows actual grace on all men in every case of temptation ;
for we maintain, that unless a person have, whenever tempted,
actual grace to keep him from sinning, his sin, whatever it
may be, can never be imputed to him. The Jansenists, on
the other hand, affirm that sins, though committed withou4
actual grace, are, nevertheless, imputed ; but they are a pac.V
»f fools." I got a glimpse of his meaning ; but. to obtain

ACTUAL GRACE AND SINS OF IGNORANCE. 179

from him a fuller explanation, I observed : " My dear father,
it is that phrase actual grace that puzzles me ; I am quite a
stranger to it, and il you would have the goodness to tell me
the same thing over again, without employing that term, you
would infinitely oblige me." ,

"Very good," returned the father; "that is to say, you
want me to substitute the definition in place of the thing de-
fined ; that makes no alteration of the sense ; 1 have no ob-
jections. We maintain it, then, as an undeniable principle,
that an action cannot be imputed as a sin, unless God bestow
on us, before committing it, the knowledge of the evil that is
in the action, and an inspiration inciting us to avoid it. Do
you understand me now ?"

Astonished at such a declaration, according to which, no
sins of surprise, nor any of those committed in entire forget-
fulness of God, could be imputed, I turned round to my
friend the Jansenist, and easily discovered from his looks
that he was of a different way of thinking. But as he did
not utter a word, I said to the monk, " I would fain wish,
my dear father, to think that what you have now said is true,
and that you have good proofs for it."

" Proofs, say you !" he instantly exclaimed : " I shall fur-
nish you with these very soon, and the very best sort too ;
let me alone for that."

So saying, he went in search of his books, and I took this
opportunity of asking my friend if there was any other per-
son who talked in this manner ? " Is this so strange to you ?"
he replied. " You may depend upon it that neither the
fathers, nor the popes, nor councils, nor Scripture, nor any
book of devotion, employ such language ; but if you wish
casuists and modern schoolmen, he will bring you a goodly
number of them on his side/' " 0 ! but I care not a fig
about these authors, if they are contrary to tradition," I said.
•You are right," he replied.

As he spoke, the good father entered the room, laden with
bocks ; and presenting to me the first that came to hand
* Read that," " he said ; " this is ' The Summary of Sins/ by

180 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Father Bauny1 — the fifth edition too, you see, which showi
that it i<« a good book."

" It is a pity, however," whispered the Jansenist in my
ear, " that this same book has been condemned at Rome, and
by the bishops of France."

" Look at page 906," said the father. I did so, and read
as follows : " In order to sin and become culpable in the
sight of God, it is necessary to know that the ~hing we wish
to do is not good, or at least to doubt that it is — ;o fear or
to judge that God takes no pleasure in the action which we
contemplate, but forbids it ; and in spite of this, to commit
the deed, leap the fence, and transgress."

" This is a good commencement," I remarked. " And
yet," said he, " mark how far envy will carry some people.
It was on that very passage that M. Hallier, before he became
one of our friends, bantered Father Bauny, by applying to
him these words : Ecce qui tollit peccata munai — ' Behold
the man that taketh away the sins of the world!' "

" Certainly," said I, " according to Father Bauny, we
may be said to behold a redemption of an entirely new de-
scription."

" Would you have a more authentic witness »n the point ?"
added he. " Here is the book of Father Annat.J It is the

1 Etienne Bauni, or Stephen Bauny, was a French Jesuit. His
" Summary," which Pascal has immortalized by his frequent references
lo it, was published in 1633. It is a large volume, stuffed with the most
detestable doctrines. In 1642, the General Assembly of the French
clergy censured his books on moral theology, a? containing propositions

' leading to licentiousness, and the corruption of good manners, violat-
ing natural equity, and excusing blasphemy, usury, simony, and other
heinous sins, as trivial matters." (Nicole, i. 164.) And yet this abomi-
nable work was formally defended in the •' Apology for the Casuists,"
written in 1657, by Father Pirot. and acknowledged by the Jesuits as
having been written under their direction ! (Nicole, Hist, des Provin-
ciales, p. 30.

2 Francis Annat was born in the year 1590. He was made rector of
the College of Toulouse, and appointed by the Jesuits their French
provincial; and, while in that situation, was chosen by Louis XIV. as
his confessor. His friends have highly extolled his virtues as a man
und the reader may judge of the value of these culogiums from the fact
that he retained his post as the favorite confessor of that licentious
monarch, without interruption, till deafness prevented him from listen-
tig any longer to the confessions of r;s royal penitent. (Bay If,, art.

ACTUAL GRACE AND SINS OF IGNORAXCR. 181

ast that he wrote against M. Arnauld. Turn up to page
34, where there is a dog's ear, and read the lines which I
nave marked with pencil — they ought to be written in letters
of gold. 1 then read these words : " He that has no thought
of God, nor of his sins, nor any apprehension (that is, as he
explained it, any knowledge) of his obligation to exercise the
acts of love to God or contrition, has no actual grace for
exercising those acts ; but it is equally true that he is guilty
of no sin in omitting them, and that, if he is damned, it will
not be as a punishment for that omission." And a few lines
below, he adds : " The same thing may be said of a culpable
commission."

" You see," said the monk, " how he speaks of sins of
omission and of commission, Nothing escapes him. What
say you to that ?"

" Say !" I exclaimed. " I am delighted ! What a charm-
ing train of consequences do I discover flowing from this
doctrine ! I can see the whole results already ; and such
mysteries present themselves before me ! Why, I see more
people, beyond all comparison, justified by this ignorance and
forgetfulness of God, than by grace and the sacraments !'
But, my dear father, are you not inspiring me with a delu-
sive joy ? Are you sure there is nothing here like that suf-

Annat.} They have also extolled his answer to the Provincial Letters,
in his " Bonne Poy des Jansenistes ." in which he professed to expose
the falsity of the quotations made from the Casuists, with what success,
appears from the Notes of Nicole, who has completely vindicated Pascal
from the unfounded charges which the Jesuits have reiterated on this
point. (Notes Preliminaires, vol. i. p. 256, &c. ; Entretiens de Cleandre
et Eudoxe p. 79.)

: When Madame du Valois, a lady of birth and high accomplish-
ments, one of the nuns of Port- Royal, among other trials by which she
was harassed and tormented for not signing the' formulary condemning
'ansenius, was threatened with being deprived of the benefit of the sar.-
ements at the hour of death, she replied : " If. at the awful hour of
death, I should be deprived of those assistances which the Church grants
to all her children, then God himself will, by his grace, immediately
and abundantly supply their instrumentality. I know, indeed, that it
,s most painful to approach the awful hour of death without an outward
participation in the sacraments ; but it is better dying, to enter into
heaven, though without the sacraments, for the cause of truth, than.
receiving the sacraments to be cited to irrevocable judgment for com
fitting perjury." (Narrative of Dem. of Port- Royal \ 176.)

P2 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

fictency which suffices not ? I am terrribly afraid of the Dis-
tinguo ; — I was taken in with that once already ! Are you
quite in earnest ?"

" How now !" cried the monk, beginning to get angry '
" here is no matter for jesting. I assure you there is no such
thing as equivocation here."

" I am not making a jest of it," said I ; "but that is Afhat
I really dread, from pare anxiety to find it true."1

" Well then," he said, " to assure yourself still more of it,
liere are the writings of M. le Moine,* who taught the doc-
trine in a full meeting of the Sorbonne. He learned it from
us, to be sure ; but he has the merit of having cleared it up
most admirably. 0 how circumstantially he goes to work !
He shows that, in order to make out an action to be a, sin,
all these things must have passed through the mind. Read,
and weigh every word." — I then read what I now give you
in a translation from the original Latin : " 1. On the one
hand, God sheds abroad on the soul some measure of love,
which gives it a bias toward the thing commanded ; and on
the other, a rebellious concupiscence solicits it in the opposite
direction. 2. God inspires the soul with a knowledge of
its own weakness. 3. God reveals the knowledge of the
physician who can heal it. 4. God inspires it with a desire
to Jbe healed. 5. God inspires a desire to pray and solicit
his assistance."

" And unless all these things occur and pass through the
soul," added the monk, " the action is not properly a sin, and
cannot be imputed, as M. le Moine shows in the same place
and in what follows. Would you wish to have other author-
ities for this ? Here they are."

"All modern ones, however," whispered my Jansenist
friend.

" So I perceive," said I to him aside ; and then, turning to

1 Will it be believed that the Jesuits actually had the consummate
lypocrisy to pretend that Pascal meant to throw ridicule on the grace
nf God. while he was merely exposing to merited contempt their owr
(Hjrversions of the doctrine 1

4 See before, page 148.

ACTUAL GRACE AND SINS OF IGNORANCE. 183

ilie monk : " 0 my dear sir," cried I, " what a Messing this
will be to some persons of my acquaintance ! I must posi-
tively introduce them to you. You have never, perhaps, met
with people who had fewer sins to account for all your life.
For, in the first place, they never think of God at all ; their
vices have got the better of their reason ; they have never
known either their weakness or the physician who can cure
it ; they have never thought of ' desiring the health of their
soul/ and still less of ' praying to God to bestow it ;' so that,
according to M. le Moine, they are still in the state of bap-
tismal innocence. They have ' never had a thought of loving
G«d or of being contrite for their sins ;' so that, according to
Father Annat, they have never committed sin through the
want of charity and penitence. Their life is spent in a per-
petual round of ah sorts of pleasures, in the course of which
they have not been interrupted by the slightest remorse.
Those excesses had led me to imagine that their perdition
was inevitable ; but you. father, inform me that these same
excesses secure their salvation. Blessings on you, my good
father, for this way of justifying people! Others prescribe
painful austerities for healing the soul ; but you show that
souls which may be thought desperately distempered are in
quite good health. What an excellent device for being happy
both in this world and in the next ! I had always supposed
that the less a man thought of God, the more he sinned ;
but, from what I see now, if one could only succeed inbring-
.ng himself not to think upon God at all, everything would
be pure with him in all time coming. Away with your half-
and-half sinners, who retain some sneaking affection for vir-
tue ! They will be damned every one of them, these semi-
sinners. But commend me to your arrant sinners — hardened,
unalloyed, out-and-out, thorough-bred sinners. Hell is no
place for them ; they have cheated the devil, purely by virtue
of their devotion to his service !"

The gcod father, who saw very well the connection be-

Iween these consequences and his principle, dexterously

' 3vad'.d them ; and maintaining his temper, either from good

184 PROVINCIAL LETTERS,

nature or policy, he merely replied : " To let yoti understand
how we avoid these inconveniences, you must know that,
while we affirm that these reprobates to whom you refer
would be without sin if they had no thoughts of conversion
and no desires to devote themselves to God, we maintain,
that they all actually have such thoughts and d°sires, and
that God never permitted a man to sin without giving him
previously a view of the evil whLh he contemplated, and a
desire, either to avoid the offence, or at all events to implore
his aid to enable him to avoid it ; and none but Jansenists
will assert the contrary."

" Strange ! father," returned I ; "is this, then, the heresy
of the Jansenists, to deny that every time a man commits a
sin, he is troubled with a remorse of conscience, in spite of
which, he ' leaps the fence and transgresses,' as Father
Banny has it ? It is rather too good a ioke to be made a
heretic for that. I can easily believe that a man 3iay be
damned for not having good thoughts ; but it ne/er would
have entered my head to imagine that any man ",ould be
subjected to that doom for not believing that all mankind
must have good thoughts ! But, father, I hold myself bound
in conscience to disabuse you, and to inform you that there
are thousands of people who have no such desires — who sin
without regret — who sin with delight — who make a boast of
sinning. And who ought to know better about these things
than yourself ? You cannot have failed to have confessed
some of those to whom I allude ; for it is among persons of
high rank that they are most generally to be met with.'

1 The Jesuits were notorious for the assiduity wkh which they srmght
admission into the families, and courted the confidence of the great, with
whom, from the laxness of their discipline and morality, as well as from
heir superior manners and accomplishments, they were, as they still
*re. the favorite confessors. They have a maxim among their secret
instructions that in dealing with the consciences of the great the con
fessor must he guided by the looser sort of opinions. The .uthor of the
Tlieatre Jesuitique illustrates this by an anecdote. A rich gentleman
,'alling sick, confessed himself to a Jesuit and among other sins ac-
knowledged an illicit intercourse with a lady, whose portrait, thinking
himself dying, he gave with many expressions of remorse, to his con-
S?ssor. The gentleman, however, recovered, and with returning health

ACTUAL GRACE AXD SIN8 OF IGNORANCE. 185

But mark, father, the dangerous consequences of your maxim.
Do you not perceive what effect it may have on those lib-
ertines who like nothing better than to find out matter of
doubt in religien ? What a handle do you give them, when
you assure them, as an article of faith, that on every occasion
when they commit a sin, they feel an inward presentiment of
the evil, and a desire to avoid it ? Is it not obvious that,
feeling convinced by their own experience of the falsity rf
your doctrine on this point, which you say is a matter of
faith, they will extend the inference drawn from this to all
the other points ? They will argue that, since you are not
trust-worthy in one article, you are to be suspected in them
all ; and thus you shut them up to conclude, either that
religion is false, or that you must know very little about it."
Here my friend the Jansenist, following up my remarks,
said to him : " You would do well, father, if you wish to
preserve your doctrine, not to explain so precisely as you
have done to us, what you mean by actual grace. For, how
could you, without forfeiting all credit in the estimation of
men, openly declare that nobody sins without having 'previ-
ously the knowledge of his weakness, and of a physician, or
the desire of a cure, and of asking it of God ? Will it be
believed, on your word, that those who are immersed in
avarice, impurity, blasphemy, duelling, revenge, robbery and
sacrilege, have really a desire to embrace chastity, humility,
and the other Christian virtues ? Can it be conceived that
those philosophers who boasted so loudly of the powers
of nature, knew its infirmity and its physician ? Will you
maintain that those who held it as a settled maxim that ' it
is not God that bestows virtue, and that no one ever asked
it from him,' would think of asking it for themselves ? Who
can believe that the Epicureans, who denied a divine provi-
dence, ever felt any inclination to pray to God ? — men who

• salutary change was effected on his character. The Jesuit, finding hitn-
»e.f forgotten, paid a visit to his former penitent, and gave him back the
portrait, which renewed all his former passion, and soon brought him
tgain to the feet of his confessor!

J86 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

said that ' it would be an insult to invoke the Deity in our
necessities, as if he were capable of wasting a thought on
beings like us ?' In a word, how can it be imagined that
idolaters and Atheists, every time they are tempted to tho
commission of sin, in other words, infinitely often during their
lives, have a desire to pray to the true God, of whom they
are ignorant, that he would bestow on them virtues of which
they have no conception '?"

" Yes," said the worthy monk, in a resolute tone, " we
will affirm it : and sooner than allow that any one sins with-
out having the consciousness that he is doing evil, and the
desire of the opposite virtue, we will maintain that the whole
world, reprobates and infidels included, have these inspira-
tions and desires in every case of temptation. You cannot
show me, from the Scripture at least, that this is not the
truth."

On this remark I struck in, by exclaiming : " What ! fa-
ther, must we have recourse to the Scripture to demonstrate
a thing so clear as this ? This is not a point of faith, nor
even of reason. It is a matter of fact : we see it — we know
it — we feel it."

But the Jansenist, keeping the monk to his own terms,
addressed him as follows : " If you are willing, father, to
stand or fall by Scripture, I am ready to meet you there ;
only you must promise to yield to its authority ; and since it
is written that ' God has not revealed his judgments to the
Heathen, but left them to wander in their own ways,' you
must not say that God has enlightened those whom the Sa-
cred Writings assure us ' he has left in darkness and in the
shadow of death.' Is it not enough to show the erroneous-
ness of your principle, to find that St. Paul calls himself 'the
chief of sinners.' for a sin which he committed ' ignorantly,
•>nd with zeal ?' Is it not enough to and, from the Gospel,
that those who crucified Jesus Christ had need of thf. pardon
which he asked for them, although th^v knew not the malice

O /

»f their action, and would never Lave committed it, accord-
Big to St. Paul, if they had known it ? Is it not enough thai

ACTUAL GKACE AND SINS OF IGNORANCE. 18}

Jesus Christ apprizes us that there will be persecutors of the
Church, who, while making every effort to ruin her, will
' think that they are doing God service ;' teaching us that
this sin, which in the judgment of the apostle, is the greatest
of all sins, may be committed by persons who, so far from
knowing that they were sinning, would think that they sinned
by not committing it ? In fine, is it not enough that Jesus
Christ himself has taught us that there are two kinds of
sinners, the one of whom sin with ' knowledge of their Mas-
tor's will,' and the other without knowledge ; and that both
of them will be ' chastised,' although, indeed, in a different
iSanner ?"

Sorely pressed by so many testimonies from Scripture, to
which he had appealed, the worthy monk began to give way ;
and, leaving the wicked to sin without inspiration, he said :
" You will not deny that good men, at least, never sin unless
God give them " " You are flinching," said I, interrupt-
ing him ; " you are flinching now, my good father ; you aban-
don the general principle, and finding that it will not hold
good in regard to the wicked, you would compound the mat-
ter, by making it apply at least to the righteous. But in
this point of view the application of it is, I conceive, so cir-
cumscribed, that it will hardly apply to anybody, and it ia
scarcely worth while to dispute the point."

My friend, however, who was so ready on the whole ques-
tion, that I am inclined to think he had studied it all that
very morning, replied : " This, father, is the last entrench-
ment to which those of your party who are willing to reason
at all are sure to retreat ; but you are far from being safe
even here. The example of the saints is not a whit more in
your favor. Who doubts that they often fall into sins of
surprise, without being conscious of them ? Do we not learn
rom the saints themselves how often concupiscence lays hid-
ilen snares for them ; and how generally it happens, as St.
Augustine complains of himself in his Confessions, that, with
all their discretion, they 'give to pleasure what they mean
to give to necessity ? '

188 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

"How usual is it to see the more zealous friends of truth
betrayed by the heat of controversy into sallies of bitter pas-
sion for their personal interests, while their consciences, at
the time, bear them no other testimony than that they are
acting in this manner purely for the interests of truth, and
they do not discover their mistake till long afterwards !

" What, again, shall we say of those who, as we learn from
examples in ecclesiastical history, eagerly involve themselves
in affairs which are really bad, because they believe them to be
really good ; and yet this does not hinder the fathers from con-
demning such persons as having sinne'l ;:, hese occasions?

"And were this not the case, how could the saints hav%
their secret faults ? How could it be true that God alone
knows the magnitude aad the nnmber of our offences ; that
no one knows whether he is worthy of hatred or love ; and
that the best of saints, though unconscious of any culpabil-
ity, ought always, as St. Paul says of himself, to remain in
' fear and trembling ?' '

" You perceive, then, father, that this knowledge of the
evil, and love of the opposite virtue, which you imagine to be
essential to constitute sin, are equally disproved by the exam-
ples of the righteous and of the wicked. In the case of the
wicked, their passion for vice sufficiently testifies that they
have no desire for virtue ; and in regard to the righteous, the
love which they bear to virtue plainly shows that they are
not always conscious of those sins which, as the Scripture
teaches, they are daily committing.

" So true is it, indeed, that the righteous often sin through

1 "The doubtsome faith of the pope,'1 as it was styled by our Re-
formers, is here lamentably apparent. The " fear and trembling'" of the
apostle were those of anxious care and diligence, not of doubt or appre-
hension. The Church of Rome, with all her pretensions to he regarded
as the only safe and infallible guide to salvation, keeps her children in
darkness and doubt on this point to the last moment of life ; they are
never permitted to reach the peaceful assurance of God's love and the
bumble hope of eternal life which the Gospel warrants the believer tj
•iherish ; and this while it serves to keep the superstitious multitude un.
der the sway of priestly domination, accounts for the gloom which has
characterized, in all ages, the devotion of the best and most intelligent
Romanists.

ACTUAL GRACE AND SINS OF IGNORANCE. 189

ignorance, that the greatest saints rarely sin otherwise For
how can it be supposed that souls so pure, who avoid with
BO much care and zeal the least things that can be displeasing
to God as soon as they discover them, and who yet sin many
times every day, co\ild possibly have, every time before they
fell into sin, ' the knowledge of their infirmity on that occa-
sion, and of their physician, and the desire of their souls'
health, and of praying to God for assistance,' and that, in
spite of these inspirations, these devoted souls ' nevertheless
transgress,' and commit the sin ?

" You must conclude then, father, that neither sinners nor
yet saints have always that knowledge, or those desires and
inspirations every time they offend ; that is, to use your own
terms, they have not always actual grace. Say no longer,
with your modern authors, that it is impossible for those to
sin who do not know righteousness ; but rather join with St.
Augustine and the ancient fathers in saying that it is impos-
sible not to sin, when we do not know righteousness : Ne-
cesse est ut peccet, a quo ignoratur justitia."

The good father, though thus driven from both of his po-
sitions, did not lose courage, but after ruminating a little,
uHa!" he exclaimed, "I shall convince you immediately."
And again taking up Father Bauny, he pointed to the same
place he had before quoted, exclaiming, u Look now — see the
ground on which he establishes his opinion ! I was sure ho
would not be deficient in good proofs. Read what he quotes
from Aristotle, and you will see that, after so express an au-
thority, you must either burn the books of this prince of philos-
ophers or adopt our opinion. Hear, then, the principles which
support Father Bauny : Aristotle states first, ' that an action
cannot be imputed as blameworthy, if it be involuntary.'

" I grant that," said ray friend.

" This is the first time you have agreed together," said L
f' Take my advice, father, and proceed no further."

" That would be doing nothing," he replied ; " we must
know what are the conditions necessary to constitute an ac-
tion voluntary."

190 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

"Iain much afraid," returned I, "that you will get at
loggerheads on that point."

" No fear of that," said he ; " tliis is sure ground — Aris-
totle is on my side. Hear, now, what Father Bauny says :
' In order that an action be voluntary, it must proceed from
a man who perceives, knows, and comprehends what is good
and what is evil in it. Voluntarium est — that is a voluntary
action, as we commonly say with the philosopher' (that is
Aristotle, you know, said the monk, squeezing my hand ;)
' quod Jit a principle cognoscente singula in quibus est acfio —
which is done by a person knowing the particulars of the ac-
tion; so that when ihe will is led inconsiderately, and with-
out mature reflection, to embrace or reject, to do or omit tc
do anything, before the understanding has been able to see
whether it would be right or wrong, such an action is neither
good nor evil ; because previous to this mental inquisition,
view, and reflection on the good or bad qualities of the mat-
ter in question, the act by which it is done is not voluntary.'
Are you satisfied now ?" said the father.

" It appears," returned I, " that Aristotle agrees with Fa-
ther Bauny ; but that does not prevent me from feeling sur-
prised at this statement. What, sir ! is it not enough to make
an action voluntary that the man knows what he is doing, and
does it just because he chooses to do it ? Must we suppose,
besides this, that he ' perceives, knows, and comprehends
what is good and evil in the action ?' Why, on this supposi-
tion there would be hardly such a thing in nature as volun-
tary actions, for no one scarcely thinks about all this. How
many oaths in gambling — how many excesses in debauchery
— how many riotous extravagances in the carnival, must, on
this principle, be excluded from the list of voluntary actions,
and consequently neither good nor bad, because not accompa-
nied by those ' mental reflections on the good and evil qual-
ities' of the action ? But is it possible, father, that Aristotle
held such a sentiment? I have always understood that h«
was a sensible man."

"1 shall soon convince you of that," said the Jansemst

ACTUAL GRACE AND SINS OF IGNORANCE. 101

and requesting a sight of Aristotle's Ethics, he opened it at
the beginning of the third book, from which Father Bauny
had taken the passage quoted, and said to the monk : " I ex-
cuse you, my dear sir, for having believed, on the word of
1< ather Bauny, that Aristotle held such a sentiment ; but you
would have changed your mind had you read him for your-
self. It is true that he teaches, that 'in order to make an
action voluntary, we must know the particulars of that ac-
tion'— singula in quibus est actio. But what else does he
mean by that, than tho particular circumstances of the ac-
tion ? The examples which he adduces clearly show this to
be his meaning, for they are exclusively confined to cases in
which the persons were ignorant of some of the circumstan-
ces ; such as that of ' a person who, wishing to exhibit a
machine, discharges a dart which wounds a bystander ; and
that of Merope, who killed her own son instead of her en-
emy,' and such like.

" Thus you see what is the kind of ignorance that renders
actions involuntary ; namely, that of (he particular circum-
stances, which is termed by divines, as you must know, igno-
rance of the fact. But with respect to ignorance of the
right — ignorance of the good or evil in an action — which is
the only point in question, let us see if Aristotle agrees with
Father Bauny. Here are the words of the philosopher: 'All
wicked men are ignorant of what they ought to do, and what
they ought to avoid ; and it is this very ignorance which
makes them wicked and vicious. Accordingly, a man can-
not be said to act involuntarily merely because he is ignorant
of what it is proper for him to do in order to fulfil his duty.
This ignorance in the choice of good and evil does not make
the action involuntary ; it only makes it vicious. The same
thing may be affirmed of the man who is ignorant generally
»f the rules of his duty ; such ignorance is worthy of blame,
not of excuse. And consequently, the ignorance which ren-
ders actions involuntary and excusable is simply that which
relates to the fact and its particular circumstances. In this

192 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

ease the person is excused and forgiven, being considered fa
having acted contrary to his inclination.'

" After this, father, will you maintain that Aristotle is of
your opinion ? And who can help being astonished to find
that a Pagan philosopher had more enlightened views than
your doctors, in a matter so deeply affecting morals, and the
direction of conscience, too, as the knowledge of those con-
ditions which render actions voluntary or involuntary, and
which, accordingly, charge or discharge them as sinful ?
Look for no more support, then, father, from the prince of
philosophers, and no longer oppose yourselves to the prince
of theologians,1 who has thus decided the point in the first
book of his Retractations, chapter xv. : 'Those who ^,in
through ignorance, though they sin without meaning to sin,
commit the deed only because they will commit it. And,
therefore, even this sin of ignorance cannot be committed
except by the will of him who commits it, though by a will
which incites him to the action merely, and not to the sin ;
and yet the action itself is nevertheless sinful, for it is
enough to constitute it such that he has done what he was
bound not to do.' "

The Jesuit seemed to be confounded more with the passage
from Aristotle, I thought, than that from St. Augustine ; but
while he was thinking on what he could reply, a messen-
ger came to inform him that Madame la Mareschale of

, and Madame the Marchioness of , requested his

attendance. So taking a hasty leave of us, he said : " I shall
speak about it to our fathers. They will find an answer to
it, I warrant you ; we have got some long heads among us."

We understood him perfectly well ; and on our being left
alone, I expressed to my friend my astonishment at the
subversion which this doctrine threatened to the whole sys-
tem of morals. To this he replied that he was quite aston-
ished at my astonishment. " Are you not yet aware," he
laid, " that they have gone to far greater excess in morals

1 Augustine.

ACTUAL GRACE AND SINS OF IGNORANCE. 193

than in any other matter?" He gave me some strange
illustrations of this, promising me more at some future
time. The information which I may receive on this point,
will, I hope, furnish the topic of my next communication.
— I am &c.
9

LETTER V.

DESIGN OF THE JESUITS IN ESTABLISHING A NEW SYSTEM OF MOH-

ALS TWO SORTS OF CASUISTS AMONG THEM, A GREAT MANY

LAX, AND SOME SEVERE ONES — REASON OF THIS DIFFERENCE —

EXPLANATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF PROBABILITY A MULTITUDE

CF MODERN AND UNKNOWN AUTHORS SUBSTITUTED IN THE PLACE
OF THE HOLY FATHERS.

PARIS, March 20, 1656.

SIR, — According to my promise, I now send you the first
outlines of the morals taught by those good fathers the Jes-
uits— " those men distinguished for learning and sagacity,
who are all under the guidance of divine wisdom — a surer
guide than all philosophy." You imagine, perhaps, that I
am in jest, but I am perfectly serious ; or rather, they are so
when they speak thus of themselves in their book entitled
" The Image of the First Century."1 I am only copying
their own words, and may now give you the rest of the eu-
logy : " The y are a society of men, or rather let us call them
angels, predicted by Isaiah in these words, ' Go, ye swift and
ready angels.' "f The prediction is as clear as day, is it not ?
" They have the spirit of eagles ; they are a flock of phoe-
nixes (a late author having demonstrated that there are a
great many of these birds) ; they have changed the face of
Christendom !" Of course, we must believe all this, since

1 Imago Primi Seculi. — The work to which Pascal here refers was
printed by the Jesuits in Flanders in the year 1040. under the title of
•• L'Image du Premier Siecle de la Societe de Jesus " being a history
of the Society of the Jesuits from the period of its establishment in 1540
• — a century before the publication. The work itself is very rare, and
would probably have fallen into oblivion, had not the substance of it
been embodied in a little treatise, itself also scarce, entitled "La Morale
Pratique des Jcsuites." The small specimen which Pascal has given
conveys but an imperfect idea of the mingled blasphemy and absurdity
af this Jesuitical production.

* Isa. xviii. 2.

POLICY OF THE JESUITS. 195

they Lave said it ; and in one sense you will find the account
amply verified by the sequel of this communication, in which
I propose to treat of their maxims.

Determined to obtain the best possible information, I did
not trust to the representations of our friend the Jansenist,
but sought an interview with some of themselves. I found,
however, that he told me nothing but the bare truth, and I
am persuaded he is an honest man. Of this you may judge
from the following account of these conferences.

In the conversation I had with the Jansenist, he told me
BO many strange things about these fathers, that I could with
difficulty believe them, till he pointed them out to me in
their writings ; after which he left me nothing more to say in
their defence, than that these might be the sentiments of
some individuals only, which it was not fair to impute to the
whole fraternity.1 And, indeed, I assured him that I knew
some of them who were as severe as those whom he quoted
to me were lax. This led him to explain to me the spirit of
the Society, which is not known to every one ; and you will
perhaps have no objections to learn something about it.

'•" Yoa imagine," he began, " that it would tell considerably
in their favor to show that some of their fathers are as friendly
to Evangelical maxims as others are opposed to them ; and
you would conclude from that circumstance, that these loose
opinions do not belong to the whole Society. That I grant
you ; for had such been the case, they would not have suf-
fered persons among them holding sentiments so diametri-
cally opposed to licentiousness. But as it is equally true
ihat there are among them those who hold these licentious
doctrines, you are bound also to conclude that the Spirit of
the Society is not that of Christian severity ; for had such been
the case, they would not have suffered persons among them
holding sentiments so diametrically opposed to that severity."

" And what, then," I asked, " can be the design of the

1 The reader is requested to notice how completely the charge brought
against the Provincial Letters by Voltaire and others is here anticipated
Mid refuted. (See Hist. Introduction.)

196 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

whole as a body ? Perhaps they have no fixed principle,
and every one is left to speak out at random whatever he
thinks."

" That cannot be," returned my friend ; " such an im-
mense body could not subsist in such a hap-hazard sort of
way, or without a soul to govern and regulate its move-
ments ; besides, it is one of their express regulations, that
none shall print a page without the approval of their su-
periors."

" But," said I, " how can these same superiors give their
consent to maxims so contradictory ?"

" That is what you have yet to learn," he replied. " Know,
then, that their object is not the corruption of manners —
that is not their design. But as little is it their sole aim to
reform them — that would be bad policy. Their idea is
briefly this : They have such a good opinion of themselves
as to believe that it is useful, and in some sort essentially ne-
cessary to the good of religion, that their influence should
extend everywhere, and that they should govern all con-
sciences. And the Evangelical or severe maxims being best
fitted for managing some sorts of people, they avail them-
selves of these when they find them favorable to their pur-
pose. But as these maxims do not suit the views of the
great bulk of people, they wave them in the case of such
persons, in order to keep on good terms with all the world.
Accordingly, having to deal with persons of all classes and
of all different nations, they find it necessary to have casuists
assorted to match this diversity.

" On this principle, you will easily see that if they had
none but the looser sort of casuists, they would defeat their
main deSign, which is to embrace all ; for those that are
truly pious are fond of a stricter discipline. But as there
are not many of that stamp, they do not require many severe
directors to guide them. They have a few for the select
few ; while whole multitudes of lax casuists are provided fo?
the multitudes that prefer laxity.1

1 " It must be observed that most of those Jesuits who were so severe

POLICY OF THE JESUITS. 197

"It is in virtue of this 'obliging and accommodating, con-
duct, as Father Petau1 calls it, that they may be said to
stretch out a helping hand to all mankind. Should any per-
son present himself before them, for example, fully resolved
to make restitution of some ill-gotten gains, do not suppose
that they would dissuade him from it. By no means ; on
the contrary, they will applaud and confirm him in such a
holy resolution. But suppose another should come who
wishes to be absolved without restitution, and it will be a
particularly hard case indeed, if they cannot furnish him
with means of evading the duty, of one kind or another, the
lawfulness of which they will be ready to guarantee.

" By this policy they keep all their friends, and defend
themselves against all their foes ; for, when charged with
extreme laxity, they have nothing more to do than produce
their austere directors, with some books which they have
written on the severity of the Christian code of morals ; and
simple people, or those who never look below the surface of
things, are quite satisfied with these proofs of the falsity of
the accusation.

" Thus are they prepared for all sorts of persons, and so
ready are they to suit the supply to the demand, that when
they happen to be in any part of the world where the doc-
trine of a crucified God is accounted foolishness, they suppress
the offence of the cross, and preach only a glorious and not
a suffering Jesus Christ. This plan they followed in the
Indies and in China, where they permitted Christians to prac-
tise idolatry itself, with the aid of the following ingenious
eontrivance : — they made their converts conceal under their
clothes an image of Jesus Christ, to which they taught them

in their writings, were less so towards their penitents. It has been said
•>f Bourdaloue himself that if he required too much in the pulpit, he
abated it in the confessional chair: a new stroke of policy well under-
stood on the part of the Jesuits, inasmuch as speculative severity suits
persons of rigid morals, and practical condescension attracts the multi-
tude." (D'Alembert, Account of Dest. of Jesuits p. 44.)

1 Petau was one of the obscure writers who were employed by the
Jesuits to publish defamatory libels against M. Arnauld and the bishopf
who approved of his book on Frequent Communion. (Coudrettc. ii.

198 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

to transfer mentally those adorations which they rendered
ostensibly to the idol Caehinchoam and Keum-fucum. This
charge is brought against them by Gravina, a Dominican,
and is fully established by the Spanish memorial presented
to Philip IV., king of Spain, by the Cordeliers of the Philip-
pine Islands, quoted by Thomas Hurtado, in his ' Marty rdom
of the Faith,' page 427. To such a length did this practice
go, that the Congregation De Propaganda were obliged ex-
pi essly to forbid the Jesuits, on pain of excommunication, to
permit the worship of idols on any pretext whatever, or to
conceal the mystery of the cross from their catechumens ;
strictly enjoining them to admit none to baptism who were
not thus instructed, and ordering them to expose the image
of the crucifix in their churches : — all which is amply de-
tailed in the decree of that Congregation, dated the 9th of
July, 1646, and signed by Cardinal Capponi.1

1 The policy to which Pascal refers was introduced by Matthew
Ricci, an Italian Jesuit, who succeeded the famous Francis Xavier in
attempting to convert the Chinese. Ricci declared that, after consulting
the writings of the Chinese literati, he was persuaded that the Xamti
and Caehinchoam of the mandarins were merely other names for the
King of Heaven, and that the idolatries of the natives were harmless
civil ceremonies. He therefore allowed his converts to practise them, on
the condition mentioned in the text. In 1631, some new paladins ot the
orders of Dominic and Francis, who came from the Philippine Islands
to share in the spiritual conquest of that vast empire, were grievously
scandalized at the monstrous compromise between Christianity anil
idolatry tolerated hy the followers of Loyola, and carried their com-
plaints to Rome. The result is illustrative of the papal policy. Pope
Innocent X. condemned the Jesuitical policy; Pope Alexander VII. in
1656 (when this letter was written) sanctioned it, and in 16f>9, Pope
Clement IX. ordained that the decrees of both of his predecessors should
continue in full force. The Jesuits, availing themselves of this sus-
pense, paid no regard either to the popes or their rival orders the
Dominicans and Franciscans, who. in the persecutions which ensued,
always came off with the worst. (Coudrette. iv. '281 ; Hist, of D. Iga.
Loyola, pp. 97-112.)

The prescription given to the Jesuits by the cardinals to expose the
image of the crucifix in their churches appears to us a sort of homoe->
pathic cure, very little better than the disease. Bossuet, and others
who have tried to soften down the doctrines of Rome, would represent
the worship ostensibly paid to the crucifix as really paid to Christ, who
is represented by it. But even this does not accord with the determina-
tion of the Council of Trent, which declared of images Eisque vcnc.rd-
tionem impertiendmn ; or with Bellarmine who devotes a chapter ex
pressHv to prove that true and proper worship is to be given to image?
\Stillingflei-t on Popery, by Dr. Cunningham, p. 77.)

POLICY OF THE JESUITS. 199

" Such is the manner in which they have spread themselves
over the whole earth, aided by the doctrine of probable opin-
ions, which is at once the source and the basis of all this,
licentiousness. You must get some of themselves to explain
this doctrine to you. They make no secret of it, any more
than of what you have already learned ; with this difference
only, that they conceal their carnal and worldly policy undei
the garb of divine and Christian prudence ; as if the faith,
and tradition its ally, were not always one and the same at
all times and in all places ; as if it were the part of the rule
to bend in conformity to the subject which it was meant to
regulate ; and as if souls, to be purified from their pollutions,
had only to corrupt the law of the Lord, in place of ' the
law of the Lord, which is clean and pure, converting the soul
which lieth in sin,' and bringing it into conformity with its
salutary lessons !

" Go and see some of these worthy fathers, I beseech you,
and I am confident that you will soon discover, in the laxity
of their moral system, the explanation of their doctrine about
grace. You will then see the Christian virtues exhibited in
such»a strange aspect, so completely stripped of the charity
which is the life and soul of them — you will see so many
crimes palliated and irregularities tolerated, that you will no
longer be surprised at their maintaining that ' all men have
always enough of grace' to lead a pious life, in the sense in
which they understand piety. Their morality being entirely
Pagan, nature is quite competent to its observance. When
we maintain the necessity of efficacious grace, we assign it
another sort of virtue for its object. Its office is not to cure
one vice by means of another ; it is not merely to induce men
to practise the external duties of religion : it aims at a virtue
higher than that propounded by Pharisees, or the greatest
cages of Heathenism. The law and reason are ' sufficient
graces' for these purposes. But to disenthral the soul from
the love of the world — to tear it from what it holds most
dear — to make it die to itself — to lift it up and bind it wholly,
Wily, and forever, to God — can be the work of none but an

200 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

all-powerful hand. And it would be as absurd to affirm that
we have the full power of achieving such objects, as it would
^e to allege that those virtues, devoid of the love of God,
which these fathers confound with the virtues of Christian-
ity, are beyond our power."

Such was the strain of ray friend's discourse, which was
delivered with much feeling ; for he takes these sad disorders
very much to heart. For my own part, I began to entertain
a high admiration of these fathers, simply on account of the
ingenuity of their policy ; and following his advice, I waited
on a good casuist of the Society, one of my old acquaint-
ances, with whom I now resolved purposely to renew my
former intimacy. Having my instructions how to manage
them, I had no great difficulty in getting him afloat. Retain-
ing his old attachment, he received me immediately with a
profusion of kindness ; and after talking over some indifferent
matters, I took occasion from the present season,1 to learn
something from him about fasting, and thus slip insensibly
into the main subject. I told htm, therefore, that I had dif-
ficulty in supporting the fast. He exhorted me to do violence
to my inclinations ; but as I continued to murmur, he . took
pity on me, and began to search out some ground for a dis-
pensation. In fact he suggested a number of excuses for
me, none of which happened to suit my case, till at length
he bethought himself of asking me, whether I did not find
it difficult to sleep without taking supper ? ' Yes, my good
father," said T ; " and for that reason I am obliged often to
take a refreshment at mid-day, and supper at night."1

" I am extremely happy," he replied, " to have found out
a way of relieving you without sin : go in peace — you are
under no obligation to fast. However, I would not have you
depend on my word : step this way to the library."

» Lent.

1 •' According to the rules of the Roman Catholic fast, one meal alone
is allowed on a fast-day. Many, however, fall off before the end o.
Lent, and take to their breakfast and suppers, under the sanction of
•ome good-natured doctor, who declares fasting injurious to their health.'
(Blanco White, Letters from Spain, p. 272.)

POLICY OF THE JESUITS. 201

On going thither with him he took up a book, exclaiming,
with great rapture, " Here is the authority for you : and, by
my conscience, such an authority ! It is ESCOBAR !"'

" Who is Escobar ?" I inquired.

" What ! not know Escobar ?" cried the monk ; " the mem-
ber of our Society who compiled this Moral Theology from
twenty-four of our fathers, and on this founds an analogy, in
his preface, between his book and ' that in the Apocalypse
which was sealed with seven st/als,' and states that ' Jesus
presents it thus sealed to the four living creatures, Suarez,
Vasquez, Molina, and Valencia,2 in presence of the four-and-
twenty Jesuits who represent the four-and-tvventy elders ?' "

He read me, in fact, the whole of that allegory, which he
pronounced to be admirably appropriate, and which conveyed
to my mind a sublime idea of the excellence of the work.
At length, having sought out the passage on fasting, " O
here it is !" he said ; " treatise 1, example 13, no. 67 : 'If a

1 Father Antoine Escobar ofMendoza was a Jesuit of Spain, and born
at Valladolid in 1589. where he died in 1669. His principal work is his
" Exposition of Uncontroverted Opinions in Moral Theology." in six vol-
umes. It abounds with the most licentious doctrines, and being a compi-
lation from numerous Jesuitical writers afforded a ricli field for the satire
of Pascal. The characteristic absurdity of this author is, thHt his ques-
tions uniformly exhibit two faces— an affirmative and a negative ; — so that
cscobarderie became a synonym in France for duplicity. (Biographic
Pittoresque des Jesuites, par M. C. de Plancy, Paris, 182G, p. 38.) Ni-
tole tells us that he had in his possession a portrait of the casuist which
gave him a '-resolute and decisive cast of countenance" — not exactly
what might have been expected from his double-faced questions. His
friends describe Escobar as a good man. a laborious student, and very
devout in his way. It is said that, when he heard that his name and
writings were so frequently noticed in the Provincial Letters, he wa«
quite overjoyed to think that his fame would extend is far as the little
tetters had done. Boileau has celebrated him in thd following cou-
plet:—

Si Bourdaloue un ppu severe,

Nous dit, craignez la voluptc :

Escobar, lui dit-on. mon pere,

Nour la permet pour la sante.

" If Bourdaloue, a little too severe,
Cries. Fly from pleasure's fatal fascination !
Dear Father, cries another. Escobar
Permits it as a healthy relaxation."

Four celebrated casuists.

202 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

man cannot sleep without taking supper, is he bound to fast?
Answer : By no means !' Will that not satisfy you ?"

" Not exactly," replied I ; " for I might sustain the fast
by taking my refreshment in the morning, and supping at
night."

" Listen, then, to what follows ; they have provided for
all that : ' And what is to be said, if the person might make
B shift with a refreshment in the morning and supping at
night ?' "

" That's my case exactly."

" ' Answer : Still he is not obliged to fast ; because no
person is obliged to change the order of his meals.' "

" A most excellent reason !" I exclaimed.

" But tell me, pray," continued the monk, " do you take
much wine ?"

" No, my dear father," I answered ; " I cannot endure it."

" I merely put the question," returned he, " to apprize
you that you might, without breaking the fast, take a glass
or so in the morning, or whenever you felt inclined for a
drop ; and that is always something in the way of support-
ing nature. Here is the decision at the same place, no. 57 :
' May one, without breaking the fast, drink wine at any hour
he pleases, and even in a large quantity ? Yes, he may :
and a dram of hippocrass too." I had no recollection of
the hippocrass," said the monk ; " I must take a note of that
in my memorandum-book."

" He must be a nice man, this Escobar," observed I.

" Oh ! everybody likes him," rejoined the father ; " he has
such delightful questions ! Only observe this one in the
iame place, no. 38 : ' If a man doubt whether he is twenty-
2rie years old, is he obliged to fast ?* No. But suppose I
were to be twenty-one to-night an hour after midnight, and
k)-morrow were the fast, would I be obliged to fast to-mor-

» Hippocrass — a medicated wine.

9 All persons above the age ot'one-and-twenty are bound to observe
the rules of the Roman Catholic fast during Lent. The obligation of
fasting begins at midnight, just when the leading clock of every town
<rikes twelve. (Letters from Spain, p. 270.1

POLICY Otf THE JESUITS. 203

row ? No ; for you were at liberty to eat as much as you
pleased for an hour after midnight, not being till then fully
twenty-one ; and therefore having a right to break the fast
day, you are not obliged to keep it.' "

" Well, that is vastly entertaining !" cried I.

" Oh," rejoined the father, " it is impossible to tear one's
self away from the book : I spend whole days and nights in
reading it ; in fact, I do nothing else."

The worthy monk, perceiving that I was interested, was
quite delighted, and went on with his quotations. " Now,"
said he, " for a taste o.* Filiutius, one of the four-and-twenty
Jesuits : ' Is a man who has exhausted himself any way —
by profligacy, for example1 — obliged to fast ? By no means.
But if he has exhausted himself expressly to procure a dis-
pensation from fasting, will he be held obliged ? He will not,
even though he should have had that design.' There now !
would you have believed that ?"

"Indeed, good father, I do not believe it yet," said I.
" What ! is it no sin for a man not to fast when he has it in
his power ? And is it allowable to court occasions of com-
mitting sin, or rather, are we not bound to shun them ?
That would be easy enough, surely."

" Not always so," he replied ; " that is just as it may
happen."

" Happen, how ?" cried I.

" Oho !" rejoined the monk, "so you think that if a person
experience some inconvenience in avoiding the occasions of
sin, he is still bound to do so ? Not so thinks Father Bauny.
' Absolution,' says he, ' is not to be refused to such as con-
tinue in the proximate occasions of sin,* if they are so situ-
ated that they cannot give them up without becoming the

1 Ad insequcndam amicam. (Tom. ii. tr. 27. part 2. c. 6 n. 143.) The
accuracy with which the references are made to the writings of these
tasuists shows anything but a design to garble or misrepresent them.

a In the technical language of theology, an " occasion of sin" is any
lituation or course of conduct which has a tendency to induce the com-
mission of sin. " Proximate occasions" are those which have a direct
ud immediate tendency of this kind.

204 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

common talk of the world, or subjecting themselves to per-
sonal inconvenience.' "

" I am glad to hear it, father," I remarked ; " and now
that we are not obliged to avoid the occasions of sin, noth-
ing more remains but to say that we may deliberately court
them."

" Even that is occasionally permitted," added he ; " the
celebrated casuist Basil Ponce has said so, and Father Bauny
quotes his sentiment with approbation, in his Treatise 01
Penance, as follows : ' We may seek an occasion of sin di-
rectly and designedly — primo et per se — when our own or
our neighbor's spiritual or temporal advantage induces us
to do so.' "

" Truly," said I, " it appears to be all a dream to me,
when I hear grave divines talking in this manner ! Come
now, my dear father, tell me conscientiously, do you hold
such a sentiment as that ?"

" No, indeed," said he, " I do not."

" You are speaking, then, against your conscience," con-
tinued I.

" Not at all," he replied ; " I was speaking on that point
not according to my own conscience, but according to that
of Ponce and Father Bauny, and them you may follow with
the utmost safety, for I assure you that they are able men."

" What, father ! because they have put down these three
tnes in their books, will it therefore become allowable to
court the occasions of sin ? I always thought that we were
bound to take the Scripture and the tradition of the Churck
as our only rule, and not your casuists."

," Goodness !" cried the monk, " I declare you put me
in mind of these Jansenists. Think you that Father Bauny
and Basil Ponce are not able to render their opinion prob-
able r

" Probable won't do for me," said I ; "I must have
certainty."

"I can easily see," replied the good father, " that you
know nothing about our doctrine of probable opinions. Y

DOCTRINE OF PROBABILITY 205

you did, you would speak in another strain. Ah ! my dear
sir, I must really give you some instructions on this point ;
without knowing this, positively you can understand nothing
at all. It is the foundation — the very A, B, c, of our whole
moral philosophy."

Glad to see him come to the point to which I had been
drawing him on, I expressed my satisfaction, and requested
him to explain what was meant by a probable opinion ?'

" That," he replied, " our authors will answer better than
I can do. The generality of them, and, among others, our
four-and-twenty elders, describe it thus : ' An opinion is
called probable, when it is founded upon reasons of some
consideration. Hence it may sometimes happen that a single
very grave doctor may render an opinion probable.' The rea-
son is added : ' For a man particularly given to study would
not adhere to an opinion unless he was drawn to it by a
good and sufficient reason.' "

" So it would appear," I observed, with a smile, " that
a single doctor may turn consciences round about and up-
side down as he pleases, and yet always land them in a safe
position."

" You must not laugh at it, sir," returned the monk ; " nor
peed you attempt to combat the doctrine. The Jansenists
.ried this ; but they might have saved themselves the trou-
ble— it is too firmly established. Hear Sanchez, one of the
most famous of our fathers : ' You may doubt, perhaps,
whether the authority of a single good and learned doctor
renders an opinion probable. I answer, that it does ; and
this is confirmed by Angelus, Sylvester, Navarre, Emanuel
Sa, &c. It is proved thus : A probable opinion is one that

1 " The casuists are divided into Probabilistce and Probabilinristte .
The first among whom were the Jesuits maintain that a certain degree
of probability as to the lawfulness of an action is enough to secure
against sin. The second, supported by the Dominicans and the Janse-
nists (a kind of Catholic Calvinists condemned by the Church), insist
3n always taking the safest or most probable side. The French proverb,
Le mieux est I'ennemi du. bien is perfectly applicable to the practical
effects of these two systems ;n Spain." (Letters from Spain p. 277.)
Nicole has a long dissertation on the subject in his Notes on this Letter

206 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

has a considerable foundation. Now the authority of a
learned and pious man is entitled to very great considera-
tion ; because (mark the reason), if the testimony of such a
man has great influence in convincing us that such and such
an event occurred, say at Rome, for example, why should
it not have the same weight in the case of a question in
morals ?' "

"An odd comparison this," interrupted I, "between the
concerns of the world and those of conscience !"

" Have a little patience," rejoined the monk ; " Sanchez
answers that in the very next sentence : ' Nor can I assent to
the qualification made here by some writers, namely, that the
authority of such a doctor, though sufficient in matters of
human right, is not so in those of divine right. It is of vast
weight in both cases.' "

" Well, father," said I, frankly, " I really cannot admire
that rule. Who can assure me, considering the freedom
your doctors claim to examine everything by reason, that
what appears safe to one may seem so to all the rest ? The
diversity of judgments is so great" —

" You don't understand it," said he, interrupting me ; "no
doubt they are often of different sentiments, but what signi-
fies that? — each renders his own opinion probable and safe.
We all know well enough that they are far from being of
the same mind ; what is more, there is hardly an instance in
which they ever agree. There are very few questions, in-
deed, in which you do not find the one saying Yes, and the
other saying No. Still, in all these cases, each of the con-
trary opinions is probable. And hence Diana says on a cer-
tain subject : ' Ponce and Sanchez hold opposite views of it ;
but, as they are both learned men, each renders his own
opinion probable.' "

" But, father," I remarked, " a person must be sadly em-
barrassed in choosing between them !" — " Not at all," he
rejoined ; " he has only to follow the opinion which suits
him best." — " What ! if the other is more probable ?" " It
does not signify." — " And if the other is the safer ?" " It

DOCTRINE OF PROBABILITY 2C7

does not signify," repeated the monk ; " this is made quite
plain by Emanuel Sa, of our Society, in his Aphorisms : ' A
person may do what he considers allowable according to a
probable opinion, though the contrary may be the safer one,
The opinion of a single grave doctor is all that is requisite.' "

" And if an opinion be at once the less probable and the
jess safe, is it allowable to follow it," I asked, " even in the
way of rejecting one which we believe to be more probable
and safe ?"

" Once more, I say Yes," replied the monk. " Hear what
Filiutius, that great Jesuit of Rome, says : ' It is allowable
to follow the less probable opinion, even though it be the
less safe one. That is the common judgment of modern
authors.' Is not that quite clear ?"

" Well, reverend father," said I, " you have given us
elbow-room, at all events ! Thanks to your probable opin-
ions, we have got liberty of conscience with a witness ! And
are you casuists allowed the same latitude in giving your
responses ?"

" 0 yes," said he, " we answer just as we please ; or
rather, I should say, just as it may please those who ask our
advice. Here are our rules, taken from Fathers Layman,
Vasquez, Sanchez, and the four-and-twenty worthies, in the
words of Layman : ' A doctor, on being consulted, may give
an advice, not only probable according to his own opinion,
but contrary to his opinion, provided this judgment hap-
•ens to be more favorable or more agreeable to the per-
on that consults him — si forte hcec favorabilior seu exoptatior
sit. Nay, I go further, and say, that there would be nothing
unreasonable in his giving those who consult him a judgment
held to be probable by some learned person, even though
he should be satisfied in his own mind that it is absolutely
false.' "

"Well, seriously, father," I said, "your doctrine is a most
uncommonly comfortable one ! Only think of being allowed
to answer Yes or No, just as you please ! It is impossible to
prize such a privilege too highly. I see now the advantage

208 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

of the contrary opinions of your doctors. One of them al-
ways serves your turn, and the other never gives you any
annoyance. If you do not find your account on the one
side, you fall back on the other, and always land in perfect
safety."

" That is quite true," he replied ; " and accordingly, we
may always say with Diana, on his finding that Father Bauny
was on his side, while Father Lugo was against him : Scepe
premente deo,fert deus alter opem."1

" I understand you," resumed I ; " but a practical diffi-
culty has just occurred to me, which is this, that supposing
a person to have consulted one of your doctors, and obtained
from him a pretty liberal opinion, there is some danger of his
getting into a scrape by meeting a confessor who takes a dif-
ferent view of the matter, and refuses him absolution unless
he recant the sentiment of the casuist. Have you not pro-
vided for such a case as that, father ?"

" Can you doubt it ?" he replied. " We have bound them,
sir, to absolve their penitents who act according to probable
opinions, under the pain of mortal sin, to secure their com-
pliance. ' When the penitent,' says Father Bauny, ' follows
a probable opinion, the confessor is bound to absolve him,
though his opinion should differ from that of his penitent.' "

" But he does not say it would be a mortal sin not to ab-
solve him," said I.

" How hasty you are !" rejoined the monk ; " listen to what
follows ; he has expressly decided that, ' to refuse absolution
*o a penitent who acts according to a probable opinion, is a
Bin which is in its nature mortal.' And to settle that point,
he cites the most illustrious of our fathers — Suarez, Vasquez,
and Sanchez."

" My dear sir," said I, " that is a most prudent regulation.
I see nothing to fear now. No confessor can dare to be re-
fractory after this. Indeed, I was not aware that you had
Ihe power of issuing your orders on pain of damnation. I

1 " When one god presses hard, another brings relief."

DOCTRINE OF PROBABILITY. 209

thought that your skill had been confined to the taking away
of sins ; 1 had no idea that it extended to the introduction
of new ones. But from what I now see, you are omnipo-
tent."

" That is not a correct way of speaking," rejoined the fa-
ther. "We do not introduce sins ; we only pay attention to
them. I have had occasion to remark, two or three times
during our conversation, that you are no great scholastic."

" Be that as it may, father, you have at least answered my
difficulty. But I have another to suggest. How do you
manage when the Fathers of the Church happen to differ
from any of your casuists ?"

" You really know very little of the subject," he replied.
" The Fathers were good enough for the morality of their
own times ; but they lived too far back for that of the pres-
ent age, which is no longer regulated by them, but by the
modern casuists. On this Father Cellot, following the famous
Reginald, remarks : ' In questions of morals, the modern casu-
ists are to be preferred to the ancient fathers, though those
\ived nearer to the times of the apostles.' And following out
this maxim, Diana thus decides : ' Are beneficiaries bound to
restore their revenue when guilty of mal-appropriation of it ?
The ancients would say Yes, but the moderns say No ; let us,
therefore, adhere to the latter opinion, which relieves from
the obligation of restitution.' '

" Delightful words these, and most comfortable they must
be to a great many people !" I observed.

" We leave the fathers," resumed the monk, " to those
^ho deal with positive divinity.1 As for us, who are the

1 In the twelfth century, in consequence of the writings of Peter
Lombard, commonly called the "Master of the Sentences." the Chris-
liar, doctors were divided into two classes — the Positive or dogmatic,
and the Scholastic divines. The Positive divines who were the teachers
of systematic divinity, expounded, though in a wretched manner, the
Sacred Writings, anil confirmed their sentiments by Scripture and tra-
dition. The scholastics instead of the Bible, explained the book of
Sentences indulging in the most idle and ridiculous speculations. — il The
practice of choosing a certain priest, not only to be the occasional con-
fessor, but the director of the conscience, was greatly encouraged by tKfl
Vsuits." (Letters from Spain p. 89.)

210 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

directors of conscience, we read very little jf them, and quote
only the modern casuists. There is Diana, for instance, a
most voluminous writer ; he has prefixed to his works a list
of his authorities, which amount to two hundred and ninety-
six, and the most ancient of them is only about eighty years
old."

" It would appear, then," I remarked, " that all these have
come into the world since the date of your Society ?"

"Thereabouts," he replied.

"That is to say, dear father, on your advent. St. Augus-
tine, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and all the
rest, in so far as morals are concerned, disappeared from the
stage. Would you be so kind as let me know the names, at
least, of those modern authors who have succeeded them ?"

" A most able and renowned class of men they are," re-
plied the monk. " Their names are, Villalobos, Conink, Lla-
mas, Achokier, Dealkozer, Dellacruz, Veracruz, Ujrolin, Tam-
bourin, Fernandez, Martinez, Suarez, Henriquez, Vasquez, Lo-
pez, Gomez, Sanchez, De Vechis, De Grassis, De Grassalis,
De Pitigianis, De Graphaeis, Squilanti, Bizozeri, Barcola, Do
Bobadilla, Simancha, Perez de Lara, Aldretta, Lorca, De
Scarcia, Quaranta, Scophra, Pedrezza, Cabrezza, Bisbe, Dias,
De Clavasio, Villagut, Adam a Manden, Iribarne, Binsfeld,
Volfangi a Vorberg.-Vosthery, Strevesdorf.'"

" 0 my dear father !" cried I, quite alarmed, " were all
these people Christians?"

" How ! Christians !" returned the casuist ; " did I not tell

1 In this extraordinary list of obscure and now forgotten casuistical
w -iters. most of them belonging to Spain, Portugal, and Flanders the
an of the author lies in stringing togel.ier the most outlandish names he
could collect, ranging them mostly according to their terminations, and
placing them in contrast with the venerable and well-known names of
the ancient fathers. To a French ear these names must have sounded
as uncouth and barbarous as those of the Scotch which Milton has
latirized to the ear of an Englishman : —

'• Cries the stall-reader, ' Bless us ! what a word on
A title-page is this !' Why. is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,
Colkitto. or Macdonnel, or Galaspl
Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp."

(Milton's Minor PoemO

DOCTRINE OF PHOBABILITT. 211

you that these are the only writers by whom we now govern
Christendom ?"

Deeply affected as I was by this announcement, I concealed
my emotion from the monk, and only asked him if all these
authors were Jesuits ?

" No," said he ; " but that is of little consequence ; they
have said a number of good things for all that. It is true
the greater part of these same good things are extracted or
copied from our authors, but we do not stand on ceremony
with them on that score, more especially as they are in the
constant habit of quoting our authors with applause. When
Diana, for example, who does not belong to our Society,
speaks of Vasquez, he calls him 'that phoenix of genius;'
and he declares more than once, ' that Vasquez alone is to
him worth all the rest of men put together' — instar omnium.
Accordingly, our fathers often make use of this good Diana;
and if you understand our doctrine of probability, you will
see that this is no small help in its way. In fact, we are
anxious that others besides the Jesuits would render their
opinions probable, to prevent people from ascribing them all
to us ; for you will observe, that when any author, whoever
he may be, advances a probable opinion, we are entitled, by
the doctrine of probability, to adopt it if we please ; and yet,
if the author do not belong to our fraternity, we are not re-
sponsible for its soundness."

" I understand all that," said I. " It is easy to see that all
are welcome that come your way, except the ancient fathers ;
you are masters of the field, and have only to walk the
lourse. But I foresee three or four serious difficulties and
powerful barriers which will oppose your career."

" And what are these ?" cried the monk, looking quite
alarmed.

" They are, the Holy Scriptures," I replied, " the popes,
»nd the councils, whom you cannot gainsay, and who are all
n the way of the Gospel."'

1 That is they were all, in Pascal's opinion, favorable to the Gospel
icheroe of monilitv.

212 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

" Is that all !" he exclaimed ; " I declare you put me in a
fright. Do you imagine that we would overlook such an
obvious scruple as that, or that we have not provided against
it ? A good idea, forsooth, to suppose that we would con-
tradict Scripture, popes, and councils ! I must convince you
of your mistake ; for I should be sorry you should go away
with an impression that we are deficient in our respect to
these authorities. You have doubtless taken up this notion
from some of the opinions of our fathers, which are appa-
rently at variance with their decisions, though in reality they
are not. But to illustrate the harmony between them would
require more leisure than we have at present ; and as I would
not like you to retain a bad impression of us, if you agree tc
meet with me to-morrow, I shall clear it all up then."

Thus ended our interview, and thus shall end my present
communication, which has been long enough, besides, for one
letter. I am sure you will be satisfied with it, in the prospect
of what is forthcoming. — I am, &c.

LETTER VI.

ARTIFI;ES OF THE JESUITS TO ELUDE THE AUTHORITY
OF THE GOSPEL, OF COUNCILS, AND OF THE POPES—SOME CON-
SEQUENCES WHICH RESULT FROM THEIR DOCTRINE OF FROBA/.
BILITT - THEIR RELAXATION IN FAVOR OF BENEFICIARIES, PRIESTS,
MONKS, AND DOMESTICS — STORY OF JOHN o'ALBA.

PARIS, April 10, 1656.

SIR, — I mentioned, at the close of my last letter, that my
good friend the Jesuit had promised to show me how the
casuists reconcile the contrarieties between their opinions
and the decisions of the popes, the councils, and the Scripture.
This promise he fulfilled at our last interview, of which I
shall now give you an account.

" One of the methods," resumed the monk, " in which we
reconcile these apparent contradictions, is by the interpre-
tation of some phrase. Thus, Pope Gregory XIV. decided
that assassins are not worthy to enjoy the benefit of sanctu-
ary in churches, and ought to be dragged out of them ; and
yet our four-and-twenty elders affirm that ' the penalty of
this bull is not incurred by all those that kill in treachery.'
This may appear to you a contradiction ; but we get over
this by interpreting the word assassin as follows : ' Are as-
sassins unworthy of sanctuary in churches ? Yes, by the
bull of Gregory XIV. they are. But by the word assassins
we understand those that have received money to murder
one ; and accordingly, such as kill without taking any re-
ward for the deed, but merely to oblige their friends, do not
come under the category of assassins.' "

" Take another instance : It is said in the Gospel, ' Give
llms of your superfluity.'1 Several Casuists, however, have

1 Luke xi. 41. — Quod superest. date cleemosynam (Vulgate); ra Ivov*

214 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

contrived to discharge the wealthiest from the obligation of
alms-giving. This may appear another paradox, but the
matter is easily put to rights by giving such an interpretation
to the word superfluity that it will seldom or never happen
that any one is troubled with such an article. This feat has
been accomplished by the learned Vasquez, in his Treatise
on Alms, c. 4 : ' What men of the world lay up to improve
their circumstances, or those of their relatives, cannot be
termed superfluity ; and accordingly, such a thing as super-
fluity is seldom to be found among men of the world, not even
excepting kings.' Diana, too, who generally founds on our
fathers, having quoted these words of Vasquez, justly con-
cludes, ' that as to the question whether the rich are bound
to give alms of their superfluity, even though the affirmative
were true, it will seldom or never happen to be obligatory in
practice.' "

" I see very well how that follows from the doctrine of
Vasquez," said I. " But how would you answer this objec-
tion, that, in working out one's salvation, it would be as safe,
according to Vasquez, to give no alms, provided one can
muster as much ambition as to have no superfluity ; as it
is safe, according to the Gospel, to have no ambition at all,
in order to have some superfluity for the purpose of alms-
giving?"1

" Why," returned he, " the answer would be, that botL

drt (Gr.); Ea qius penes vos sunt date (Beza); " Give alms of such
things as ye have." (Eng. Ver.)

1 When Pascal speaks of alms-giving " working out our salvation,"
it is evident that he regarded it only as the evidence of our being in
a state of salvation. Judging by the history of his life, and by his
" Thoughts on Religion," no man was more free from spiritual pride, or
that poor species of it which boasts of or rests in its eleemosynary sacri-
fices. His charity flowed from love and gratitude to God. Such waa
his regard for the poor that he could not refuse to give alms, even
though compelled to take from the supply necessary to relieve his own
infirmities: and on his death-bed he entreated that a poor person should
be brought into the house and treated with the same attention as him-
self declaring that when he thought of his own comforts and of the
multitudes who were destitute of the merest necessaries, he felt a dis-
tress which he could not endure. '• One thing I have observed." he
lays in his Thoughts — "that let a man be ever so poor, he has alway
wmethini' to leave on his death-bed."

JESUITICAL ELUSIONS. 215

&f these ways are safe according to the Gospel ; the one ac-
cording to the Gospel in its more literal and obvious sense,
and the other according to the same Gospel as interpreted
by Vasquez. There you see the utility of interpretations.
When the terms are so clear, however," he continued, " as
not to admit of an interpretation, we have recourse to the
observation of favorable circumstances. A single example
will illustrate this. The popes have denounced excommuni-
cation on monks who lay aside their canonicals ; our casuists,
notwithstanding, put it as a question, ' On what occasions
may a monk lay aside his religious habit without incurring
excommunication ?' They mention a number of cases in
which they may, and among others the following : 'If he
has laid it aside for an infamous purpose, such as to pick
pockets or to go incognito into haunts of profligacy, meaning
shortly after to resume it.' It is evident the bulls have no
reference to cases of that description."

I could hardly believe that, and begged the father to show
me the passage in the original. He did so, and under the
chapter headed " Practice according to the School of the
Society of Jesus" — Praxis ex Societatis Jesu Schola — I read
these very words : Si fiabitum dimittat ut furetur occulte,
vel fornicetur. He showed me the same thing in Diana, in
these terms : Ut eat incognitus ad lupnnar. " And why,
father," I asked, " are they discharged from excommunication
on such occasions?"

" Don't you understand it ?" he replied. " Only think
what a scandal it would be, were a monk surprised in such
a predicament with his canonicals on ! And have you never
heard," he continued, " how they answer the first bull con-
tra sollicitantes ? and how our four-and-twenty, in another
chapter of the Practice according to the School of our Soci-
ety, explain the bull of Pius V. contra clericos, &c. ?'"

" I know nothing about all that," said I.

1 These bulls were directed against gross and unnatural crimes pre-
lailing among the clergy. (Nicolo, ii. pp. 373-3~6.)

216 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

" Then it is a sign you have not read much of Escobar,"
returned the monk.

" I got him only yesterday, father," said I ; " and I had
no small difficulty, too, in procuring a copy. I don't know
how it is, hut everybody of late has been in search of
him."1

" The passage to which I referred," returned the monk,
"may be found in treatise 1, example 8, no. 102. Consult
it at your leisure when you go home."

I did so that veiy night ; but it is so shockingly bad, that
I dare not transcribe it.

The good father then went on to say : " You now understand
what use we make of favorable circumstances. Sometimes,
however, obstinate cases will occur, which will not admit of
this mode of adjustment ; so much so, indeed, that you would
almost suppose they involved flat contradictions. For exam-
ple, three popes have decided that monks who are bound by
a particular vow to a Lenten life,9 cannot be absolved fron?
it even though they should become bishops. And yet Diana
avers that notwithstanding this decision they are fibsolved."

" And how does he reconcile that ?" said I.

" By the most subtle of all the modern methods, and by
the nicest possible application of probability," replied the
monk. " You may recollect you were told the other day,
that the affirmative and negative of most opinions have each,
according to our doctors, some probability — enough, at least,
to be followed with a safe conscience. Not that the pro and
ton are both true in the same sense — that is impossible — but
only they are both probable, and therefore safe, as a matter
of course. On this principle our worthy friend Diana re-
marks : ' To the decision of these three popes, which is con-
trary to my opinion, I answer, that they spoke in this way
by adhering to the affirmative side — which, in fact, even in
any judgment, is probable; but it does not follow from this

1 An allusion to the popularity of the Letters, which induced man}
to inquire aller the casuistical writings sooilen quoted in them.
3 Lenten Ijfc — nn abstemious life or life of fasting.

JESUITICAL ELUSIONS, 217

that the negative may not have its probability too/ And in
the same treatise, speaking of another subject on which he
again differs from a pope, he says : ' The pope, I grant, has
said it as the head of the Church ; but his decision does not
extend beyond the sphere of the probability of his own
opinion.' Now you perceive this is not doing any harm to
the opinions of the popes ; such a thing would never be tol
crated at Rome, where Diana is in high repute. For he does
not say that what the popes have decided is not probable ;
but leaving their opinion within the sphere of probability, he
merely says that the contrary is also probable."

"That is very respectful," said I.

" Yes," added the monk, " and rather more ingenious than
the reply made by Father Bauny, when his books were cen-
sured at Rome ; for when pushed very hard on this point by
M. Hallier, he made bold to write : ' What has the censure
of Rome to do with that of France ?' You now see how,
either by the interpretation of terms, by the observation of
favorable circumstances, or by the aid of the double proba-
bility of pro and con, we always contrive to reconcile those
seeming contradictions which occasioned you so much sur-
prise, without ever touching on the decisions of Scripture,
councils, or popes."

" Reverend father," said I, " how happy the world is in
having such men as you for its masters ! And what bless-
ings are these probabilities ! I never knew the reason why
you took such pains to establish that a single doctor, if a
qrave one, might render an opinion probable, and that the
contrary might be so too, and that one may choose any side
one pleases, even though he does not believe it to be the
right side, and all with such a safe conscience, that the con-
fessor who should refuse him absolution on the faith of the
casuists would be in a state of damnation. But I see now
that a single casuist may make new rules of morality at his
discretion, and dispose, according to his fancy, of everything
pertaining to the regulation of manners."

" What you have now said," rejoined the father, " would
10

218 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

require to be modified a little. Pay attention now, while 1
explain our method, and you will observe the progress of a
new opinion, from its birth to its maturity. First, the grave
doctor who invented it exhibits it to the world, casting it
abroad like seed, that it may take root. In this state it is
very feeble ; it requires time gradually to ripen. This ac-
counts for Diana, who has introduced a great many of these
opinions, saying : ' I advance this opinion ; but as it is new,
I give it time to come to maturity — relinquo tempori rnatu-
randum.' Thus in a few years it becomes insensibly consoli-
dated ; and after a considerable time it is sanctioned by the
tacit approbation of the Church, according to the grand max-
im of Father Bauny, ' that if an opinion has been advanced
b}7 some casuist, and has not been impugned by the Church,
it is a sign that she approves of it.' And, in fact, on this
principle he authenticates one of his own principles in his
sixth treatise, p. 312."

"Indeed, father!" cried I, "why, on this principle the
Church would approve of all the abuses which she tolerates,
and all the errors in all the books which she does not cen-
sure !"

"Dispute the point with Father Bauny," he replied. "I
am merely quoting his words, and you begin to quarrel with
me. There is no disputing with facts, sir. Well, as I was
saying, when time has thus matured an opinion, it thence-
forth becomes completely probable and safe. Hence the
learned Caramuel, in dedicating his Fundamental Theology
to Diana, declares that this great Diana has rendered many
opinions probable which were not so before — quce antea non
erint ; and that, therefore, in following them, persons do not
sin now, though they would have sinned formerly — -jam non
peccant, licet ante peccaverint."

"Truly, father," I observed, "it must be worth one's
while living in the neighborhood of your doctors. Why, of
two individuals who do the same actions, he that knows noth-
ing about their doctrine sins, while he that knows it does no
sin. It seems, then, that their doctrine possesses at once ac

MAXIMS FOR ALL CLASSES. 219

«difying and a justifying virtue ! The law of God, accord*
ing to St. Paul, made transgressors;' but this law of yours
makes nearly all of us innocent. I beseech you, my dear
sir, let me know all about it. I will not leave you till you
have told me all the maxims which your casuists have estab-
lished."

" Alas !" the monk exclaimed, " our main object, no doubt,
should have been to establish no other maxims than those
of the Gospel in all their strictness : and it is easy to see,
from the Rules for the regulation of our manners,1 that if
we tolerate some degree of relaxation in others, it is rather
out of complaisance than through design. The truth is, sir,
we are forced to it. Men have arrived at such a pitch of cor-
ruption nov/-a-days, that unable to make them come to us,
we must e'en go to them, otherwise they would cast us off
altogether; and what is worse, they would become perfect
castaways. It is to retain such characters as these that our
casuists have taken under consideration the vices to which
people of various conditions are most addicted, with the view

1 Prevaricateurs. — Alluding probably to such texts as Rom. iv. 15 :
" The law worketh wrath ; for where no law is, there is no transgres-
sion."— Ubi enim non est lex, nee prevaricatio (Vulg.) ; or Rom. v.
13, &c.

a The Rules (Regulae Communes*) of the Society of Jesus, it must be
admitted, are rigid enough in the enforcement of moral decency and
discipline on the members ; and the perfect candor of Pascal appears
in the admission. This, however, only adds weight to the real charge
which he substantiates against them, of teaching maxims which tend
to the subversion of morality. With regard to their personal conduct,
lifferent opinions prevail. ' Whatever we may think of the political
lelinquencies of their leaders " says Blanco White. " their bitterest ene-
nies have never ventured to charge the order of Jesuits with moraj
irregularities. The internal policy of that body." he adds, '-precluded
.he possibility of gross misconduct." (Letters from Spain p. 8!).) We
are far from being sure of this. The remark seems to apply to only one
species of vice, too common in monastic life, and may be true of the
conventual establishments of the Jesuits, where outward decency forms
part of the deep policy of the order; but what dependence can be placed
on the moral purity of men whose consciences must be debauched by
»ueh maxims'? Jarrige informs us that they boasted at one time in
Spain of possessing an herb which preserved their chastity ; and on be-
iMg questioned by the king to tell what it was, they replied : " It was the
'ear of God." " But " says the author " whatever they might be then,
"t is plain that they have since, lost the seed of thut herb for it no longer
sprows in their garlen." (Jesuites sur 1'Echaufaud, ch. 6.)

220 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

of laying down maxims which, while they cannot be said to
violate the truth, are so gentle that he must be a very im-
practicable subject indeed who is not pleased with them.
The grand project of our Society, for the good of religion, ia
never to repulse any one, let him be what he may, and so
avoid driving people to despair.1

" They have got maxims, therefore, for all sorts of per-
sons ; for beneficiaries, for priests, for monks ; for gentlemen,
for servants ; for rich men, for commercial men ; for people
ift embarrassed or indigent circumstances ; for devout women,
and women that are not devout ; for married people, and
irregular people. In short, nothing has escaped their fore-
sight."

" In other words," said I, " they have got maxims for the
clergy, the nobility, and the commons.1 Well, I am quite
impatient to hear them."

"Let us commence," resumed the father, " with the bene-
ficiaries. You are aware of the traffic with benefices that is
now carried on, and that were the matter referred to St.
Thomas and the ancients who have written on it, there might
chance to be some simoniacs in the Church. This rendered
it highly necessary for our fathers to exercise their prudence
in finding out a palliative. With what success they have
done so will appear from the following words of Valencia,
who is one of Escobar's ' four living creatures.' At the end
of a long discourse, in which he suggests various expedients,
he propounds the following at page 2039, vol. iii., which, to
my mind, is the best : ' If a person gives a temporal in ex-
change for a spiritual good' — that is, if he gives money for a
oenefice — ' and gives the money as the price of the benefice,
it is manifest simony. But if he gives it merely as the mo-

1 It has been observed, with great truth, by Sir James Macintosh,
tha. " casuistry, the inevitable growth of the practices of confession and
absolution, has generally vibrated betwixt the extremes of impractica-
ble severity and contemptible indulgence." (Hist, of England, vol. ii
p. 359.)

8 Tiers e/at — These were the three orders into which the people of
France were divided; the tiers etat or third estate, corresponding to our
commons.

MAXIMS FOR PRIESTS. 221

Sive which inclines the will of the patron to confer on him the
living, it is not simony, even though the peison who confers
it considers and expects the money as the principal object.'
Tanner, who is also a member of our Society, affirms the
same thing, vol. iii., p. 1519, although he 'grants that St.
Thomas is opposed to it ; for he expressly teaches that it is
always simony to give a spiritual for a temporal good, if the
temporal is the end in view.' By this means we prevent an
immense number of simoniacal transactions ; for who would
be so desperately wicked as to refuse, when giving money
for a benefice, to take the simple precaution of so directing
his intentions as to give it as a motive to induce the benefic-
iary to part with it, instead of giving it as the price of the
benefice ? No man, surely, can be so far left to himself as
that would come to."

" I agree with you there," I replied ; " all men, I should
think, have sufficient grace to make a bargain of that sort."

" There can be no doubt of it," returned the monk.
" Such, then, is the way in which we soften matters in re-
gard to the beneficiaries. And now for the priests — we have
maxims pretty favorable to them also. Take the following,
for example, from our four-and-twenty elders : ' Can a priest,
has received money to say a mass, take an additional
upon the same mass ? Yes, says Filiutius, he may, by
applying that part of the sacrifice which belongs to himself
as a priest to the person who paid him last; provided he
does not take a sum equivalent to a whole mass, but only a
part, such as the third of a mass.' "

" Surely, father," said I, " this must be one of those cases
in which the pro and the con have both their share of proba-
bility. What you have now stated cannot fail, of course, to
be probable, having the authority of such men as Filiutius
and Escobar ; and yet, leaving that within the sphere of
probability, it strikes me that the contrary opinion might be
made out to be probable too, and might be supported by
*uch reasons as the following • That, while the Church allows
priests who are in poor circumstances to take money for their

222 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

masses, seeing it is but right that those who serve at the
altar should live by the altar, she never intended that they
should barter the sacrifice for money,1 and still less, that
they should deprive themselves of those benefits which they
otight themselves, in the first place, to draw from it ; to which
I might add, that, according to St. Paul, the priests are to
offer sacrifice first for themselves, and then for the people ;s
and that accordingly, while permitted to participate with
others in the benefit of the sacrifice, they are not at liberty
to forego their share, by transferring it to another for a third

i With all respect for Pascal and his good intention, it is plain that
there is a wide difference between the duty illustrated by the apostle
from the ancient law, of supporting those who minister in holy things
in and for their ministrations, and the practice introduced by the Church,
of Rome, of putting a price on the holy things themselves. In the one
case, it was simply a recognition of the general principle that : the la-
borer is worthy of his hire." In the other, it was converting the minis-
ter into a shopman who was allowed to " barter" his sacred wares at
the market price, or any price he pleased. To this mercenary principle
most of the superstitions of Rome may be traced. The popish doctrine
of the mass is founded on transubstantiation or the superstition broached
in the ninth century, that the bread and wine are converted by the
priest into the real body and blood of Christ. It was never settled in
the Romish Church to be a proper propitiatory sacrifice for the living
and the dead till the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century ; so that
it is comparatively a modern invention. The mass proceeds on the «!>-
surd assumption that our blessed Lord offered up his body and blood in
the institution ofthe supper, before offering them on the cross, and par-
took of them himself; and it involves the blasphemy of supposing that
a sinful mortal may, whenever he pleases, offer up the great sacrifice
of that body and blood, which could only be offered by the Son of God
and offered by him only once. This, however, is the gr<*at Diana of
the popish priests — by this craft they have their wealth — and ihe whole
of its history proves that it was invented for no other purposes than im-
posture and extortion.

a Heb. vii. '27. — It is astonishing to see an acute mind like that of
ascal so warped by superstition as not to perceive that in this, an
ther allusions to the Levitical priesthood, the object of the apostle was
ivowedly to prove that the great sacrifice for sin of which the ancient
sacrifices were the types, had been •• once offered in the end of the
world " and that ' there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins;" and
that the very text to which he refers, teaches that, in the person of
Jesus Christ, our high priest, all the functions of the sacrificing priest-
hood were fulfilled and terminated • " Who needeth not daily as those
hi«h priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for
the people's : for this he did once, when he offered up himself." The
ministers of the New Testament are never in Scripture called priests
though this name has been applied to the Christian people who offer up
he • spiritual sacrifices" of praise and good works. (Heb. xiii. 15, 16
I Pet. ii 5.)

MAXIMS FOR PRIESTS. 223

of a mass, or, in other words, for the matter of fourpence or
fivepence. Verity, father, little as I pretend to be a grave
man, I might contrive to make this opinion probable."

" It would cost you no great pains to do that," replied the
monk ; "it is visibly probable already. The difficulty lies in
discovering probability in the converse of opinions manifestly
good ; and this is a feat which none but great men can
achieve. Father Bauny shines in this department. It is
really delightful to see that learned casuist examining with
characteristic ingenuity and subtlety, the negative and affir-
mative of the same question, and proving both of them to be
right ! Thus in the matter of priests, he says in one place :
' No law can be made to oblige the curates to say mass every
day ; for such a law would unquestionably (hand dubie) ex-
pose ^hem to the danger of saying it sometimes in mortal
sin.' And yet in another part of the same treatise, he says,
' that priests who have received money for saying mass every
day ought to say it every day, and that they cannot excuse
themselves on the ground that they are not always in a fit
state for the service ; because it is in their power at all times
to do penance, and if they neglect this they have themselves
to blame for it, and not the person who made them say
mass.' And to relieve their minds from all scruples on the
subject, he thus resolves the question : ' May a priest say
mass on the same day in which he has committed a mortal
sin of the worst kind, in the way of confessing himself before-
hand ?' Villalobos says No, because of his impurity ; but
Sancius says, He may without any sin ; and I hold his opin-
ion to be safe, and one which may be followed in practice —
ti tuta et sequenda in prazi."1

" Follow this opinion in practice !" cried I. " Wilt any
priest who has fallen into such irregularities, have the assur-
ance on the same day to approach the altar, on the mere
word of Father Bauny ? Is he not bound to submit to the
Micient laws of the Church, which debarred from the sacrifice

1 Treatise 10 p. 474, '!>.. p. 441 ; Quest. 32, p. 457

224 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

forever, or at least for a long time, priests who had commit-
ted sins of that description — instead of following the modem
opinions of casuists, who would admit him to it on the very
day that witnessed his fall ?"

" You have a very short memory," returned the monk.
" Did I not inform you a little ago that, according to our fa-
thers Cellot and Reginald, ' in matters of morality we are to
follow, not the ancient fathers, but the modern casuists ?' "

"I remember it perfectly," said I ; " but we have some-
thing more here : we have the laws of the Church."

"True," he replied ; "but this shows you do not know an-
other capital maxim of our fathers, 'that the laws of the
Church lose their authority when they have gone into desue-
tude— cum jam desuctudine abierunt — as Filiutus says.1 We
know the present exigencies of the Church much better than
the ancients could do. Were we to be so strict in excluding
priests from the altar, you can understand there would not be
such a great number of masses. Now a multitude of masses
brings such a revenue of glory to God and of good to souls,
that I may venture to say, with Father Cellot, that there
would not be too many priests, ' though not only all men
and women, were that possible, but even inanimate bodies,
and even brute beasts — bruta animalia — were transformed
into priests to celebrate mass.' "*

I was so astounded at the extravagance of this imagina-
tion, that I could not utter a word, and allowed him to go on
with his discourse. " Enough, however, about priests ; I am
nfraid of getting tedious: let us come to the monks. The
grand difficulty with them is the obedience they owe to their
superiors ; now observe the palliative which our fathers apply
in this case. Castro Palao8 of our Society has said : ' Beyond
all dispute, a monk who has a probable opinion of his own, is

1 Tom. ii. tr. 25. n. 33. And yet they will pretend to hold that then
Church is infallible !

2 Book of the Hierarchy, p. 611, Rouen edition.

3 Op. Mor. p. 1, disp. 2, p. 6. Ferdinand de Castro Palao was a
Jesuit of .Spain and author of a work on Virtues and Vices, published
in 1631.

MAXIMS FOR SERVANTS. 225

not bound to obey his superior, though the opinion of the
latter is the more probable. For the monk is at liberty to
adopt the opinion which is more agreeable to himself — quce
sibi gratior fuerit — as Sanchez says. And though the order
of his superior be just, that does not oblige you to obey him,
for it is not just at all points or in every respect — non unde-
quaque justd prcecepit — but only probably so ; and conse-
quently, you are only probably bound to obey him, and prob-
ably not bound — probabiliter obligatus, et probabiliter deobli-
gatus.' "

"Certainly, father," said I, "it is impossible too highly to
estimate this precious fruit of the double probability."

" It is of great use indeed," he replied ; " but we must be
brief. Let me only give you the following specimen of our
famous Molina in favor of monks who are expelled from their
convents for irregularities. Escobar quotes him thu's : ' Mo-
lina asserts that a monk expelled from his monastery is not
obliged to reform in order to get back again, and that he is
no longer bound by his vow of obedience.' '

" Well, father," cried I, " this is all very comfortable for
the clergy. Your casuists, I perceive, have been very indul.
gent to them, and no wonder — they were legislating, so to
speak, for themselves. I am afraid people of other condi-
tions are not so liberally treated. Every one for himself in
this world."

" There you do us wrong," returned the monk ; " they
could not have been kinder to themselves than we have been
to them. We treat all, from the highest to the lowest, with
an even-handed charity, sir. And to prove this, you tempt
me to tell you our maxims for servants. In reference to this
class, we have taken into consideration the difficulty they
must experience, when they are men of conscience, in serving
profligate masters. For if they refuse to perform all the er-
rands in which they are employed, they lose their places ; and
if they yield obedience, thej have their scruples. To relieve
them from these, our four-and-twenty fathers have specified
the services which they may render with a safe conscience ,'
10*

226 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

luch as, 'carrying letters and presents, opening doors and
windows, helping their master to reach the window, holding
the ladder which he is mounting. All this,' say they, ' is al-
lowable and indifferent ; it is true that, as to holding the lad-
der, they must be threatened, more than usually, with being
punished for refusing ; for it is doing an injury to the master
of a house to enter it by the window.' You perceive the
judiciousness of that observation, of course?"

"I expected nothing less," said I, "from a book edited by
four-and-twenty Jesuits."

"But," added the monk, "Father Bauny has gone beyond
this ; he has taught valets how to perform these sorts of
offices for their masters quite innocently, by making them
direct their intention, not to the sins to which they are acces-
sary, but to the gain which is to accrue from them. In his
Summary of Sins, p. YlO, first edition, he thus states the
matter : ' Let confessors observe,' says he, ' that they cannot
absolve valets who perform base errands, if they consent to
the sins of their masters ; but the Reverse holds true, if they
have done the thing merely from a regard to their temporal
emolument.' And that, I should conceive, is no difficult mat-
ter to do ; for why should they insist on consenting to sins of
which they taste nothing but the trouble ? The same Father
Bauny has established a prime maxim in favor of those who
are not content with their wages : ' May servants who are dis-
satisfied with their wages, use means to raise them by laying
their hands on as much of the property of their masters as
they may consider necessary to make the said wages equiva-
lent to their trouble ? They may, in certain circumstances ;
as when they are so poor that, in looking for a situation, they
have been obliged to accept the offer made to them, and when
other servants of the same class are gaining more than they.
elsewhere.' "

" Ha, father !" cried I, " that is John d' Alba's passage, I
declare."

"What John d'Alba?" inquired the father : "what do you
mean ?"

8TORT OP JOHN o'ALBA. 227

"Strange, father!" returned I: " do you not remember
what happened in this city in the year 1647 ? Where in the
world were you living at that time ?"

" I was teaching cases of conscience in one of our colleges
far from Paris," he replied.

" I see you don't know the story, father : I must tell it
you. I heard it related the other day by a man of honor,
whom I met in company. He told us that this John d'Alba,
who was in the service of your fathers in the College of Cler-
mont, in the Rue St. Jacques, being dissatisfied with his wa-
ges, had purloined something to make himself amends ; and
that your fathers, on discovering the theft, had thrown him
into prison on the charge of larceny. The case was reported
to the court, if I recollect right, on the 16th of April, 1647 ;
for he was very minute in his statements, and indeed they
would hardly have been credible otherwise. The poor fel-
low, on being questioned, confessed to having taken some
pewter plates, but maintained that for all that he had not
stolen them ; pleading in his defence this very doctrine of Fa-
ther Bauny, which he produced before the judges, along with
a pamphlet by one of your fathers, under whom he had stud-
ied cases of conscience, and who had taught him the same
thing. Whereupon M. De Montrouge, one of the most re-
spected members of the court, said, in giving his opinion,
' that he did not see how, on the ground of the writings of
these fathers — writings containing a doctrine so illegal, per-
nicious, and contrary to all laws, natural, divine, and human,
and calculated to ruin all families, and sanction all sorts of
household robbery — they could discharge the accused. But
his opinion was, that this too faithful disciple should be
whipped before the college gate, by the hand of the common
hangman ; and that, at the same time, this functionary should
burn the writings of these fathers which treated of larceny,
with certification that they were prohibited from teaching
*uch doctrine in future, upon pain of death.'

" The result of this judgment, which was heartily approved
of, was waited for with much curiosit) when some incident

228 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

occurred which made them delay procedure. But in the
mean time the prisoner disappeared, nobody knew how, and
nothing more was heard about the affair ; so that John d' Alba
got off, pewter plates and all. Such was the account he
gave us, to which he added, that the judgment of M. De
Alontrouge was entered on the records of the court, where
any one may consult it. We were highly amused at the
story."

" What are you trifling about now ?" cried the monk.
" What does all that signify ? I was explaining the maxims
of our casuists, and was just going to speak of those relating
to gentlemen, when you interrupt me with impertinent
stories."

" It was only something put in by the way, father," I ob-
served ; " and besides, I was anxious to apprize you of an im-
portant circumstance, which I find you have overlooked in
establishing your doctrine of probability."

" Ay, indeed !" exclaimed the monk, " what defect can
this be, that has escaped the notice of so many ingenious
men ?"

" You have certainly," continued I, " contrived to place your
disciples in perfect safety so far as God and the conscience are
concerned ; for they are quite safe in that quarter, according
to you, by following in the wake of a grave doctor. You have
also secured them on the part of the confessors, by obliging
priests, on the pain of mortal sin, to absolve all who follow a
urobable opinion. But you have neglected to secure them
>n the part of the judges ; so that, in following your proba-
bilities, they are in danger of coming into contact with the
whip and the gallows. This is a sad oversight."

" You are right," said the monk ; " I am glad you men-
tioned it. But the reason is, we have no such power over
magistrates as over the confessors, who are obliged to refer
to us in cases of conscience, in which we are the sovereign
iudges."

" So I understand," returned I ; " but if, on the one hand,
you are the judges of the confessors, are you not, on the

STORY OF JOHN D*ALBA. 229

other hand, the confessors of the judges ? Your power is
very extensive. Oblige them, on pain of being debarred
from the sacraments, to acquit all criminals who act on a
probable opinion ; otherwise it may happen, to the great
contempt and scandal of probability, that those whom you
render innocent in theory may be whipped or hanged in
practice. Without something of this kind, how can you
expect to get disciples ?"

" The matter deserves consideration," said he ; " it will
never do to neglect it. I shall suggest it to our father Pro-
vincial. You might, however, have reserved this advice to
some other time, without interrupting the account I was
about to give you of the maxims which we have established
in favor of gentlemen ; and I shall not give you any more in-
formation, except on condition that you do not tell me any
more stories."

This is all you shall have from me at present ; for it would
require more than the limits of one letter to acquaint you
with all that I learned in a single conversation. — Meanwhile
1 ana, <tc.

LETTER VII.1

HETJIOD OF DIRECTING THE INTENTION ADOPTED BY THE CASUISTS
— PERMISSION TO KILL IN DEFENCE OF HONOR AND PROPERTY,

EXTENDED EVEN TO PRIESTS AND MONKS CURIOUS QUESTION

RAISED BY CARAMUEL, AS TO WHETHER JESUITS MAY BE A*,-
LOWED TO KILL JANSENISTS.

PARIS, April 25, 1656.

SIR, — Having succeeded in pacifying the good father, who
had been rather disconcerted by the story of John d'Alba,
he resumed the conversation, on my assuring him that 1
would avoid all such interruptions in future, and spoke of
the maxims of his casuists with regard to gentlemen, nearly
in the following terms : —

" You know," he said, " that the ruling passion of persons
in that rank of life is ' the point of honor,' which is perpetu-
ally driving them into acts of violence apparently quite at
variance with Christian piety ; so that, in fact, they would be
almost all of them excluded from our confessionals, had not
our fathers relaxed a little from the strictness of religion, to
accommodate th'emselves to the weakness of humanity
Anxious to keep on good terms both with the Gospel, by doing
their duty to God, and with the men of the world, by show-
ing charity to their neighbor, they needed all the wisdom
they possessed to devise expedients for so nicely adjusting
matters as to permit these gentlemen to adopt the methods
usually resorted to for vindicating their honor, without
wounding their consciences, and thus reconcile two things
apparently so opposite to each other as piety and the point
of honor. But, sir, in proportion to the utility of the design,
was the difficulty of the execution. You cannot fail, I should

1 This Letter wa* revised bv M. Nicole.

DIRECTING THE INTENTION. 231

think, to realize the magnitude and arduousness of sucii an
enterprize ?"

" It astonishes me, certainly," said I, rather coldly.

" It astonishes you, forsooth !" cried the monk. " I can
well believe that ; many besides you might be astonished at
it. Why, don't you know that, on the one hand, the Gos-
pel commands us ' not to render evil for evil, but to leave
vengeance to God ;' and that, on the other hand, the laws of
the world forbid our enduring an affront without demanding
satisfaction from the offender, and that often at the expense
of his life ? You have never, I am sure, met with anything,
to all appearance, more diametrically opposed than these two
codes of morals ; and yet, when told that our fathers have
reconciled them, you have nothing more to say than simply
that this astonishes you !"

" I did not sufficiently explain myself, father. I should
certainly have considered the thing perfectly impracticable,
if I had not known, from what I have seen of your fathers,
that they are capable of doing with ease what is impossible
to other men. This led me to anticipate that they must have
discovered some method for meeting the difficulty — a method
which I admire even before knowing it, and which I pray
you to explain to me."

" Since that is your view of the matter," replied the monk,
" I cannot refuse you. Know, then, that this marvellous
principle is our grand method of directing the intention — the
importance of which, in our moral system, is such, that I
might almost venture to compare it with the doctrine of
probability. You have had some glimpses of it in passing,
from certain maxims which I mentioned to you. For exam-
ple, when I was showing you how servants might execute
jertain troublesome jobs with a safe conscience, did you not
remark that it was simply by diverting their intention from
the evil to which they were accessary, to the profit which
they might reap from the transaction ? Now that is what
we call directing the intention. You saw, too, that were it
tot. for a similar divergence of the mind, those who giv«

232 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

money for benefices might be downright simomacs. But I
will now show you this grand method in all its glory, as it
applies to the subject of homicide — a crime which it justifies in
a thousand instances ; in order that, from this startling re-
sult, you may form an idea of all that it is calculated to
effect."

" I foresee already," said I, " that, according to this mode,
everything will be permitted ; it will stick at nothing."

" You always fly from the one extreme to the other," re-
plied the monk: "prithee avoid that habit. For just to show
you that we are far from permitting everything, let me tell
you that we never suffer such a thing as a formal intention
to sin, with the sole design of sinning ; and if any person
whatever should persist in having no other end but evil in
the evil that he does, we break with him at once : such con-
duct is diabolical. This holds true, without exception of age,
sex, or rank. But when the person is not of such a wretched
disposition as this, we try to put in practice our method of
directing the intention, which simply consists in his proposing
to himself, as the end of his actions, some allowable object.
Not that we do not endeavor, as far as we can, to dissuade
men from doing things forbidden ; but when we cannot pre-
vent the action, we at least purify the motive, and thus cor-
rect the viciousness of the mean by the goodness of the end.
Such is the way in which our fathers have contrived to per-
mit those acts of violence to which men usually resort in
vindication of their honor. They have no more to do than
to turn off their intention from the desire of vengeance,
which is criminal, and direct it to a desire to defend their
honor, which, according to us, is quite warrantable. And in
this way our doctors discharge all their duty towards God
*nd towards man. By permitting the action, they gratify
the world ; and by purifying the intention, they give satisfac-
tion to the Gospel. This is a secret, sir, which was entirely
unknown to the ancients ; the world is indebted for the dis-
covery entirely to our doctors. You understand it now, I
aope ?"

PRIVATE REVENGE PERMITTED. 233

"Perfectly well," was my reply. "To men you grant
the outward material effect of the action ; and to God you
give the inward and spiritual movement of the intention ;
and by this equitable partition, you form an alliance between
the laws of God and the laws of men. But, my dear sir, to
be frank with you, I can hardly trust your premises, and I
euspect that your authors will tell another tale."

"You do me injustice," rejoined the monk; "I advance
nothing but what I am ready to prove, and that by such a
rich array of passages, that altogether their number, their
authority, and their reasonings, will fill you with admiration.
To show you, for example, the alliance which our fathers
have formed between the maxims of the Gospel and those of
the world, by thus regulating the intention, let me refer you
to Reginald : ] ' Private persons are forbidden to avenge
themselves; for St. Paul says to the Romans (ch. 12th),
' Recompense to no man evil for evil ;' and Ecclesiasticus says
(ch. 28th), 'He that taketh vengeance shall draw on him-
self the vengeance of God, and his sins will not be forgotten.'
Besides all that is said in the Gospel about forgiving offences,
as in the 6th and 18th chapters of St. Matthew.'"

" Well, father, if after that he says anything contrary to
the Scripture, it will not be from lack of scriptural knowl-
edge, at any rate. Pray, how does he conclude ?"

" You shall hear," he said. "From all this it appears that
a military man may demand satisfaction on the spot from the
person who has injured him — not, indeed, with the intention
of rendering evil for evil, but with that of preserving hia
honor — ' non ut malum pro malo reddat. sed ut conservet hono-
rem.' See you how carefully they guard against the inten-
tion of rendering evil for evil, because the Scripture con-
demns it? This is what they will tolerate on no account
Thus Lessius2 observes, that ' if a man has received a blow
on the face, he must on no account have an intention ta
avenge himself; but he may lawfully have an intention t«

1 Inpraxi: liv. xxi., num. 62, p. 260.

2 De Just. liv. ii., c. 9, d. 12, n. 79.

231 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

avert infamy, and may, with that view, repel the insult im-
mediately, even at the point of the sword — etiam cum gladioT
So far are we from permitting any one to cherish the design
of taking vengeance on his enemies, that our fathers will not
allow any even to wish their death — by a movement of hatred.
' If your enemy is disposed to injure you,' says Escobar, 'you
have no right to wish his death, by a movement of hatred ;
though you may, with a view to save yourself from harm.'
So legitimate, indeed, is this wish, with such an intention,
that our great Hurtado de Mendoza says, that 'we may pray
God to visit with speedy death those who are bent on per-
secuting us, if there is no other way of escaping from it.' "

"May it please your reverence," said I, "the Church
has forgotten to insert a petition to that effect among her
prayers."

" They have not put in everything into the prayers that
one may lawfully ask of God," answered the monk. " Be-
sides, in the present case the thing was impossible, for this
same opinion is of more recent standing than the Breviary.
You are not a good chronologist, friend. But, not to wander
from the point, let me request your attention to the follow-
ing passage, cited by Diana from Gaspar Hurtado,2 one of
Escobar's four-and -twenty fathers : ' An incumbent may,
without any mortal sin, de&ire the decease of a life-renter
on his benefice, and a son that of his father, and rejoice
when it happens ; provided always it is for the sake of the
profit that is to accrue from the event, and not from personal
aversion.' "

" Good !" cried I. " That is certainly a very happy hit ;
and I can easily see that the doctrine admits of a wide appli-
cation. But yet there are certain cases, the solution of which,
though of great importance for gentlemen, might present
»till greater difficulties."

"Propose them, if you please, that we may see," said th«
monk.

' In his book, De Spe, vol. ii.. d. 15, sec. 4. 48.
" De Sub. Pecc., diff. 9; Diana, p. 5; tr. 14, r. 99.

DUELLING PERMITTED. 235

" Show me, with all your directing of the intention," re-
turned I, " that it is allowable to fight a duel."

" Our great Hurtado de Mendoza," said the father, " will
satisfy you on that point in a twinkling. 'If a gentleman,'
says he, in a passage cited by Diana, ' who is challenged to
fight a duel, is well known to have no religion, and if the
vices to which he is openly and unscrupulously addicted are
such as would lead people to conclude, in the event of his
refusing to fight, that he is actuated, not by the fear of God,
but by cowardice, and induce them to say of him that he
was a hen, and not a man — gallina, et non vir ; in that case
he may, to save his honor, appear at the appointed spot —
not, indeed, with the express intention of fighting a duel,
but merely with that of defending himself, should the per-
son who challenged him come there unjustly to attack him.
His action in this case, viewed by itself, will be perfectly
indifferent ; for what moral evil is there in one stepping
into a field, taking a stroll in expectation of meeting a per-
son, and defending one's self in the event of being attacked ?
And thus the gentleman is guilty of no sin whatever ; for
in fact it cannot be called accepting a challenge at all, his
intention being directed to other circumstances, and the
acceptance of a challenge consisting in an express intention
to fight, which we are supposing the gentleman never had.' "

" You have not kept your word with me, sir," said I.
" This is not, properly speaking, to permit duelling ; on the
contrary, the casuist is so persuaded that this practice is for-
bidden, that, in licensing the action in question, he carefully
avoids calling it a duel."

" Ah !" cried the monk, " you begin to get knowing on
my hand, I am glad to see. I might reply, that the author
I have quoted grants all that duellists are disposed to ask.
But since you must have a categorical answer, I shall allow
•>ur Father Layman to give it for me. He permits duelling
in so many words, provided that, in accepting the challenge,
the person directs his intention solely to the preservation
of his honor or his property ' If a soldier or a courtier is

236 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

in such a predicament that he must lose either his honor OT
his fortune unless he accepts a challenge, I see nothing tc
hinder him from doing so in self-defence.' The same thing
is said by Peter Hurtado, as quoted by our famous Escobar ;
his words are : ' One may fight a duel even to defend one's
property, should that be necessary ; because every man has
a right to defend his property, though at the expense of his
enemy's life !' "

I was struck, on hearing these passages, with the reflec-
tion that while the piety of the king appears in his exerting
all his power to prohibit and abolish the practice of duelling
in the State,1 the piety of the Jesuits is shown in their em-
ploying all their ingenuity to tolerate and sanction it in the
Church. But the good father was in such an excellent key
for talking, that it would have been cruel to have interrupted
him ; so he went on with his discourse.

" In short," said he, " Sanchez (mark, now, what great
names I am quoting to you !) Sanchez, sir, goes a step further ;
for he shows how, simply by managing the intention rightly,
a person may not only receive a challenge, but give one.
And our Escobar follows him."

" Prove that, father," said I, " and I shall give up the
point : but I will not believe that he has written it, unless I
see it in print."

" Read it yourself, then," he replied : and, to be sure, I
read the following extract from the Moral Theology of
Sanchez : " It is perfectly reasonable to hold that a man may
fight a duel to save his life, his honor, or any considerable

1 Before the age of Louis XIV. the practice of duelling prevailed in
France to such a frightful extent that a writer, who is not given to ex-
aggerate in such matters says that -; It had done as much to depopu-
late the country as the civil and foreign wars and that in the course of
twenty years, ten of which had been disturbed by war more French-
men perished by the handset* Frenchmen than by those of their enemies.
(Voltaire. Siucle de Louis XIV.. p 4'2.) The abolition of this barba-
ous custom was one of the greatest services which Louis XIV. rendered
to his country. This was not fully accomplished till 1663, when a
bloody combat of four against four determined him to put an end to the
practice, by making it death, without benefit of clergy, to send or accept
a challenge.

ASSASSINATION PERMITTED. 237

portion of his property, when it is apparent that there is a
design to deprive him of these unjustly, by law-suits and
chicanery, and when there is no other way of preserving them.
Navarre justly observes, that in such cases, it is lawful
either to accept or to send a challenge — licet acceptare et
vfferre duellum. The same author adds, that there is nothing
to prevent one from despatching one's adversary in a private
way. Indeed, in the circumstances referred to, it is advisa-
ble to avoid employing the method of the duel, if it is possi-
ble to settle the affair by privately killing our enemy ; for,
by this means, we escape at once from exposing our life in
the combat, and from participating in the sin which our op-
ponent would have committed by fighting the duel !'"

" A most pious assassination !" said I. " Still, however,
pious though it be, it is assassination, if a man is permitted to
kill his enemy in a treacherous manner."

" Did I say that he might kill him treacherously ?" cried
the monk. " God forbid ! I said he might kill him privately,
and you conclude that he may kill him treacherously, as if
that were the same thing ! Attend, sir, to Escobar's defini-
tion before allowing yourself to speak again on this subject
' We call it killing in treachery, when the person who is slain
had no reason to suspect such a fate. He, therefore, that
slays his enemy cannot be said to kill him in treachery, even
although the blow should be given insidiously and behind his
back — licet per insidias aut a tergo percutiat.' And again :
' He that kills his enemy, with whom he was reconciled under
a promise of never again attempting his life, cannot be abso-
lutely said to kill in treachery, unless there was between them
all the stricter friendship — arctior amicitia.'* You see now
you do not even understand what the terms signify, and yet
vou pretend to talk like a doctor."

" I grant you this is something quite new to me," I re-
plied ; " and I should gather from that definition that few, if
my, were ever killed in treachery ; for people seldom take

1 Sanchez Theol. Mor., liv. ii. c. 39, n. 7.
z Escobar, ir. G; ex. 4. n. 23, 5G.

238 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

it into their heads to assassinate any but their enemies. B<
this as it may, however, it seems that, according to Sanchez,
a man may freely slay (I do not say treacherously, but only
insidiously, and behind his back) a calumniator, for example,
who prosecutes us at law ?"

"Certainly he may," returned the monk, "always, how-
ever, in the way of giving a right direction to the intention :
you constantly forget the main point. Molina supports the
same doctrine ; and what is more, our learned brother Regi-
nald maintains that we may despatch the false witnesses
whom he summons against us. And, to crown the whole,
according to our great and famous fathers Tanner and Ema-
nuel Sa, it is lawful to kill both the false witnesses and tlie
judge himself, if he has had any collusion with them. Here
are Tanner's very words : ' Sotus and Lessius think that it is
not lawful to kill the false witnesses and the magistrate who
conspire together to put an innocent person to death ; but
Emanuel Sa and other authors with good reason impugn
that sentiment, .at least so far as the conscience is concerned.'
And he goes on to show that it is quite lawful to kill both
the witnesses and the judge."

" Well, father," said I, " I think I now understand pretty
well your principle regarding the direction of the intention ;
but I should like to know something of its consequences, and
all the cases in which this method of yours arms a man with
the power of life and death. Let us go over them again, for
fear of mistake, for equivocation here might be attended with
dangerous results. Killing is a matter which requires to be
well-timed, and to be backed with a good probable opinion.
You have assured me, then, that by giving a proper turn to
the intention, it is lawful, according to your fathers, for the
preservation of one's honor, or even property, to accept a
challenge to a duel, to give one sometimes, to kill in a private
»?ay a false accuser, and his witnesses along with him, and
even the judge who has been bribed to favor them ; and you
have also told me that he who has got a blow, may, without

ASSASSINATION PERMITTED. 239

avenging himself, retaliate with the sword. But you have
not told me, father, to what length he may go."

" He can hardly mistake there," replied the father, " for
he may go al'i the length of killing his man. This is satis-
factorily proved by the learned Henriquez, and others of our
fathers quoted by Escobar, as follows : ' It is perfectly right
to kill a person who has given us a box on the ear, althougj
he should run away, provided it is not done through hatred
or revenge, and there is no danger of giving occasion thereby
to murders of a gross kind and hurtful to society. And the
reason is, that it is as lawful to pursue the thief that has
, stolen our honor, as him that has run away with our prop-
erty. For, although your honor cannot be said to be in the
hands of your enemy in the same sense as your goods and
chattels are in the hands of the thief, still it may be recov-
ered in the same way — by showing proofs of greatness and
authority, and thus acquiring the esteem of men. And, in
point of fact, is it not certain that the man who has received
a buffet on the ear is held to be under disgrace, until he has
wiped off the insult with the blood of his enemy ?' "

I was so shocked on hearing this, that it was with great
difficulty I could contain myself; but, in my anxiety to hear
the rest, I allowed him to proceed.

" Nay," he continued, "it is allowable to prevent a buffet,
by killing him that meant to give it, if there be no other way
to escape the insult. This opinion is quite common with our
fathers. For example, Azor, one of the four-and-twenty eld-
ers, proposing the question, ' Is it lawful for a man of honor
to kill another who threatens to give him a slap on the face,
or strike him with a stick ?' replies, ' Some say he may not ;
alleging that the life of our neighbor is more precious than
our honor, and that it would be an act of cruelty to kill a
man merely to avoid a blow. Others, however, think that
it is allowable ; and I certainly consider it probable, when
there is no other way of warding off the insult ; foi , other-
wise, the honor of the innocent would be constantly exposed
to the malice of the insolent.' The same opinion is given by

240 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

our great Filiutius; by Father Hereau, in his Treatise on
Homicide ; by Hurtado de Mendoza, in his Disputations ; by
Becan, in his Summary ; by our Fathers Flahaut and Le-
court, in those writings which the university, in their third
petition, quoted at length, in order to bring them into dis-
grace (though in this they failed) ; and by Escobar. In
short, this opinion is so general, that Lessius lays it down as
a point which no casuist has contested ; he quotes a great
many that uphold, and none that deny it ; and particularly
Peter Navarre, who, speaking of affronts in general (and
there is none more provoking than a box on the ear), declares
that ' by the universal consent of the casuists, it is lawful to«»
kill the calumniator, if there be no other way of averting the
affront — ex sententia omnium, licet contumeliosum occidere, si
aliter ea injuria arceri nequit.' Do you wish any more
authorities ?" asked the monk.

I declared I was much obliged to him ; I had heard rather
more than enough of them already. But just to see how far
this damnable doctrine would go, I said, " But, father, may
not one be allowed to kill for something still less ? Might
not a person so direct his intention as lawfully to kill another
for telling a lie, for example ?"

" He may," returned the monk ; " and according to Father
Baldelle, quoted by Escobar, ' you may lawfully take the life
of another for saying, You have told a lie ; if there is no
other way of shutting his mouth.' The same thing may be
done in the case of slanders. Our Fathers Lessius and Hereau
agree in the following sentiments : ' If you attempt to run
my character by telling stories against me in the presence of
men of honor, and I have no other way of preventing this
than by putting you to death, may I be permitted to do so ?
According to the modern authors, I may, and that even
though I have been really guilty of the crime which you
divulge, provided it is a secret one, which you could not
establish by legal evidence. And I prove it thus : If you
mean to rob me of my honor by giving me a box on the ear
] may prevent it by force of arms ; and the same mode of

KILLING FOR A LIB. 241

defence is lawful when you would do me the same injury
with the tongue. Besides, we may lawfully obviate affronts,
and therefore slanders. In fine, honor is dearer than life :
and as it is lawful to kill in defence of life, it must be so to
kill in defence of honor.' There, you see, are arguments in
due form ; this is demonstration, sir — not mere discussion.
And, to conclude, this great man Lessius shows, in the same
place, that it is lawful to kill even for a simple gesture, or a
sign of contempt. 'A man's honor,' he remarks, 'may be
ftttacked or filched away in various ways — in all which vin-
dication appears very reasonable ; as, for instance, when one
offers to strike us with a stick, or give us a slap on the face,
or affront us either by words or signs — sive per signa.' "

" Well, father," said I, " it must be owned that you have
made every possible provision to secure the safety of reputa-
tion ; but it strikes me that human life is greatly in danger,
if any one may be conscientiously put to death simply for a
defamatory speech or a saucy gesture."

" That is true," he replied ; " but as our fathers are very
circumspect, they have thought it proper to forbid putting
this doctrine into practice on such trifling occasions. They
say, at least, ' that it ought hardly to be reduced to practice
— practice vix probari potest.' And they have a good reason
for that, as you shall see."

" Oh ! I know what it will be," interrupted I ; " because
the law of God forbids us to kill, of course."

"They do not exactly take that ground," said the father;
" as a matter of conscience, and viewing the thing abstractly,
they hold it allowable."

" And why, then, do they forbid it ?"

" I shall tell you that, sir. It is because, were we to kill
all the defamers among us, we should very shortly depopu-
late the country. ' Although,' says Reginald, * the opinion
that we may kill a man for calumny is not without its proba-
bility in theory, the contrary one ought to be followed in
practice ; for, in our mode of defending ourselves, we should
always avoid doing injury to the commonwealth ; and it is
11

242 PROVINCIAL LKTTKRS.

evident that by killing people in this way there would be too
many murders.' ' We should be bn our guard,' says Lessius,
' lest the practice of this maxim prove hurtful to the State ;
for in this case it ought not to be permitted — tune enim non
ist permittendus.' "

" What, father ! is it forbidden only as a point of policy,
and not of religion ? Few people, I am afraid, will pay any
regard to such a prohibition, particularly when in a passion.
Very probably they might think they were doing no harm to
the State, by ridding it of an unworthy member."

" And accordingly," replied the monk, " our Filiutius has
*orti6ed that argument with another, which is of no slender
mportance, namely, ' that for killing people after this man-
ner, one might be punished in a court of justice.' "

" There now, father ; I told you before, that you will never
be able to do anything worth the while, unless you get the
magistrates to go along with you."

" The magistrates," said the father, " as they do not pen-
etrate into the conscience, judge merely of the outside of the
action, while we look principally to the intention ; and hence
it occasionally happens that our maxims are a little different
from theirs."

" Be that as it may, father ; from yours, at least, one thing
may be fairly inferred — that, by taking care not to injure the
commonwealth, we may kill defamers with a safe conscience,
provided we can do it with a sound skin. But, sir, after
having seen so well to the protection of honor, have you
done nothing for property ? I am aware it is of inferior im-
portance, but that does not signify ; T should think one
might direct one's intention to kill for its preservation also."

" Yes," replied the monk ; " and I gave you a hint to that
effect already, which may have suggested the idea to you.
All our casuists agree in that opinion ; and they even extend
the permission to those cases ' where no further violence is
Apprehended from those that steal our property ; as, for ex
ample, where the thief runs away.' Azor, one of our Society
proves that point."

KILLING FOR PROPERTY. 243

" But, sir, how much must the article be worth, to justify
»ur proceeding to that extremity ?"

" According to Reginald and Tanner, ' the article must be
of great value in the estimation of a judicious man.' And so
think Layman and Filiutius."

" But, father, that is saying nothing to the purpose ; where
tm I to find ' a judicious man' (a rare person to meet with at
any time), in order to make this estimation ? Why do they
not settle upon an exact sum at once ?"

" Ay, indeed !" retorted the monk ; " and was it so easy,
think you, to adjust the comparative value between the life
of a man, and a Christian man, too, and money ? It is here
I would have you feel the need of our casuists. Show me
any of your ancient fathers who will tell for how much money
we may be allowed to kill a man. What will they say, but
' Non occides — Thou shalt not kill ?' "

" And who, then, has ventured to fix that sum ?" I in-
quired.

" Our great and incomparable Molina," he replied — " the
glory of our Society — who has, in his inimitable wisdom,
estimated the life of a man ' at six or seven ducats ; for
which sum he assures us it is warrantable to kill a thief,
even though he should run off ;' and he adds, ' that he would
not venture to condemn that man as guilty of any sin who
should kill another for taking away an article worth a crown,
or even less — unius aurei, vel minoris adhuc valoris ;' which
has led Escobar to lay it down as a general rule, ' that a man
.nay be killed quite regularly, according to Molina, for the
value of a crown-piece.' "

" 0 father !" cried I, " where can Molina have got all this
wisdom to enable him to determine a matter of such impor-
tance, without any aid from Scripture, the 'councils, or the
fathers ? It is quite evident that he has obtained an illumi-
nation peculiar to himself, and is far beyond St. Augustine
in the matter of homicide, as well as of grace. Well, now,
I suppose I may consider myself master of this chapter of
morals ; and I see perfectly that, with the exception of eccle-

£44 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

siastics, nobody need refrain from killing those who injure
them in their property or reputation."

" What say you ?" exclaimed the monk. " Do you then
suppose that it would be reasonable that those who ought
of all men to be most respected, should alone be exposed to
the insolence of the wicked ? Our fathers have provided
against that disorder ; for Tanner declares that ' Churchmen,
and even monks, are permitted to kill, for the purpose of
defending not only their lives, but their property, and that
of their community.' Molina, Escobar, Becan, Reginald,
Layman, Lessius, and others, hold the same language. Nay,
according to our celebrated Father Lamy,1 priests and monks
may lawfully prevent those who would injure them by cal-
umnies from carrying their ill designs into effect, by putting
them to death. Care, however, must be always taken to
direct the intention properly. His words are: 'An ecclesi-
astic or a monk may warrantably kill a defamer who threatens
to publish the scandalous crimes of his community, or his
own crimes, when there is no other way of stopping him ;
if, for instance, he is prepared to circulate his defamations
unless promptly despatched. For, in these circumstances, as
the monk would be allowed to kill one who threatened to
take his life, he is also warranted to kill him who would de-
prive him of his reputation or his property, in the same way
as the men of the world.' "

" I was not aware of that," said I ; "in fact, I have been
accustomed simply enough to believe the very reverse, with-
mt reflecting on the matter, in consequence of having heard
ihat the Church had such an abhorrence of bloodshed as
not even to permit ecclesiastical judges to attend in criminal
cases."8

1 Francois Amicus. or L'Amy, was chancellor of the University ot
Gratz. In his Cours Tkeologique. published in 1642. he advances the
inost dangerous tenets, particularly on the subject of murder.

* This is true; but in the case of heretics, at least, they found out a
Convenient mode of compromising the matter. Having condemned
Iheir victim as worthy of death, he was delivered over to the secular
iourt, with the disgusting farce of a recommendation to mercy, couch-
ed in these terms : 1; My lord judge, we beg of you with all possible af

CHURCHMEN MAY KILL 245

" Never mind that," he replied ; " our Father Lamy has
lompletely proved the doctrine I have laid down, although,
with a humility which sits uncommonly well on so great a
man, he submits it to the judgment of his judicious readers.
Caramuel, too, our famous champion, quoting it in his Fun-
damental Theology, p. 543, thinks it so certain, that he de-
clares the contrary opinion to be destitute of probability, and
draws some admirable conclusions from it, such as the fol-
lowing, which he calls ' the conclusion of conclusions — con-
clusionum conclusio :' * That a priest not only may kill a
slanderer, but there are certain circumstances in which it
mav be his duty to do so — etiam aliquando debet occidere?
He examines a great many new questions on this principle,
such as the following, for instance : 'May the Jesuits kill the
Jansenists ?' "

" A curious point of divinity that, father !" cried I. " I
hold the Jansenists to be as good as dead men, according to
Father Lamy's doctrine."

" There now, you are in the wrong," said the monk :
" Caramuel infers the very reverse from the same principles."

" And how so, father ?"

" Because," he replied, " it is not in the power of the Jan-
eenists to injure our reputation. 'The Jansenists,' says he,
'call the Jesuits Pelagians; may they not be killed for
that ? No ; inasmuch as the Jansenists can no more obscure
the glory of the Society than an owl can eclipse that of the
Bun ; on the contrary, they have, though against their in-
tention, enhanced it — occidi non possunt, quia nocere non po-
tiierunt.' "

" Ha, father ! do the lives of the Jansenists, then, depend
on the contingency of their injuring your reputation ? If so,
I reckon them far from being in a safe position ; for suppos-

"ection, for the love of God, and j?s you would expect the gifts of mercy
and compassion, and the benefit of our prayers, not to do anything in-
jurious to this miserable man, tending to death or the mutilation of hit
oody '" (Orespin, Hist, des Martyres, p. 185.)

246 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

ing it should be thought in the slightest degree probable that
they might do you some mischief, why, they are killable at
once ! You have only to draw up a sylllogism in due form,
and, with a direction of the intention, you may despatch your
man at once with a safe conscience. Thrice happy must
those hot spirits be who cannot bear with injuries, to be in-
structed in this doctrine ! But woe to the poor people who
hare offended them ! Indeed, father, it would be better to
have to do with persons who have no religion at all, than
with those who have been taught on this system. For, after
all, the intention of the wounder conveys no comfort to the
wounded. The poor man sees nothing of that secret direction
of which you speak ; he is only sensible of the direction of
the blow that is dealt him. And I am by no means sure
but a person would feel much less sorry to see himself bru-
tally killed by an infuriated villain, than to find himself con-
scientiously stilettoed by a devotee. To be plain with you,
father, I am somewhat staggered "at all this; and these
questions of Father Lamy and Caramuel do not please me at
all."

" How so ?" cried the monk. " Are you a Jansenist ?"

" I have another reason for it," I replied. " You must
know I am in the habit of writing from time to time, to a
friend of mine in the country, all that I can learn of the max-
ims of your doctors. Now, although I do no more than
simply report and faithfully quote their own words, yet I am
apprehensive lest my letter should fall into the hands of some
stray genius, who may take into his head that I have done
you injury, and may draw some mischievous conclusion from
your premises."

" Away !" cried the monk ; " no fear of danger from that
quarter, I'H give you my word for it. Know that what our
fathers have themselves printed, with the approbation of
our superiors, it cannot be wrong to read nor dangerous to
publish."

I write you, therefore, on the faith of this worthy father's

MAY JESUITS KILL JANSENISTS ? 247

word of honor. But, in the mean time, I must stop for want
of paper — not of passages ; for I have got as many more in
reserve, and good ones too, as would require volumes to con-
tain them. — I am, &C.1

1 It may be noticed here that Father Daniel has attempted to evade
the main charge against the Jesuits in this letter by adroitly altering the
state of the question. He argues that the intention is the soul of an
action, and that which often makes it good or evil ; thus cunningly in-
sinuating that his casuists refer only to indifferent actions, in regard to
which nobody denies that it is the intention that makes them good or
bad. (Entretiens df Cleandre et d'Eudoxe, p. 334.) It is unnecessary
to do more than refer the reader back to the instances cited in the letter,
to convince him that what these casuists really maintain is, that actions
in themselves evil, may be allowed provided the intentions are good ;
and, moreover, that in order to make these intentions good, it is not ne-
cessary that they have any reference to God, but sufficient if they refer
to our own convenience, cupidity or vanity. (Apologie dea LettresPiv-
vinciales, pp. 212-221.)

LETTER VIII.1

CVRBUPT MAXIMS OF THE CASUISTS RELATIK3 TO JUDGES U?TJ

BERS THE CONTRACT MOHATRA — BANKRUPTS RESTITUTION—

DIVERS RIDICULOUS NOTIONS OF THESE SAME CASUISTS.

PARIS, May 28, 1656.

SIR, — You did not suppose that anybody would have the
curiosity to know who we were ; but it seems there are peo-
ple who are trying to make it out, though they are not very
happy in their conjectures. Some take me for a doctor of
he Sorbonne ; others ascribe my letters to four or five per-
sons, who, like me, are neither priests nor Churchmen. All
these false surmises convince me that I have succeeded pretty
well in my object, which was to conceal myself from all but
yourself and the worthy monk, who still continnes to bear
with my visits, while I still contrive, though with considerable
difficulty, to bear with his conversations. I am obliged, how-
ever, to restrain myself ; for were he to discover how much I
am shocked at his communications, he would discontinue
them, and thus put it out of my power to fulfil the promise
.1 gave you, of making you acquainted with their morality
You ought to think a great deal of the violence which I thus
do to my own feelings. It is no easy matter, I can assure
you, to stand still and see the whole system of Christian eth-
ics undermined by such a set of monstrous principles, with-
out daring to put in a word of flat contradiction against them.
But after having borne so much for your satisfaction, I am
resolved I shall burst out for my own satisfaction in the end,
when his stock of information has been exhausted. Mean-
while, I shall repress my feelings as much as I possibly can

This Letter also was revised by M. Nicole.

MAXIMS FOR JUDGES. 249

for I find that the more I hold my tongue, he is the more
communicative. The last time I saw him, he told me so
many things, that I shall have some difficulty in repeating
them all. On the point of restitution you will find th'ey have
some most convenient principles. For, however the good
monk palliates his maxims, those which I am about to lay
before you really go to sanction corrupt judges, usurers, bank-
rupts, thieves, prostitutes and sorcerers — all of whom are
most liberally absolved from the obligation of restoring their
ill-gotten gains. It was thus the monk resumed the conver-
sation : —

" At the commencement of our interviews, I engaged to
explain to you the maxims of our authors for all ranks and
classes ; and you have already seen those that relate to bene-
ficiaries, to priests, to monks, to domestics, and to gentlemen.
Let us now take a cursory glance of the remaining, and begin
with the judges.

"Now I am going to tell you one of the most important
and advantageous maxims which our fathers have laid down
in their favor. Its author is the learned Castro Palao, one
of our four-and-twenty elders. His words are: 'May a
judge, in a question of right and wrong, pronounce accord-
ing to a probable opinion, in preference to the more probable
opinion ? He may, even though it should be contrary to his
own judgment — imo contra propriam opinionem.' "

" Well, father," cried I, " that is a very fair commence-
ment ! The judges, surely, are greatly obliged to you ; and
T am surprised that they should be so hostile, as we have
sometimes observed, to your probabilities, seeing these are so
iivorable to them. For it would appear from this, that you
give them the same power over men's fortunes, as you have
given to yourselves over their consciences."

" You perceive we are far from being actuated by self-
\nterest," returned he ; " we have had no other end in view
Shan the repose of their consciences ; and to the same use-
tul purpose has our great Molina devoted his attention, in re-
gard to the presents whicli may be made them. To remove

11*

250 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

any scruples which they might entertain in accepting of these
on certain occasions, he has been at the pains to draw out a
list of all those cases in which bribes may be taken with a
good conscience, provided, at least, there be no special law
forbidding them. He says : ' Judges may receive presents
from parties, when they are given them either for friendship's
sake, or in gratitude for some former act of justice, or to
induce them to give justice in future, or to oblige them to
pay particular attention to their case, or to engage them to
despatch it promptly.' The learned Escobar delivers himself
to the same effect : ' If there be a number of persons, none
of whom have more right than another to have their causes
disposed of, will the judge who accepts of something from
one of them on condition — ex pacto — of taking up his cause
first, be guilty of sin ? Certainly not, according to Layman ;
for, in common equity, he does no injury to the rest, by
granting to one, in consideration of his present, what he was
at liberty to grant to any of them he pleased ; and besides,
being under an equal obligation to them all in respect of their
right, he becomes more obliged to the individual who fur-
nished the donation, who thereby acquired for himself a pref-
erence above the rest — a preference which seems capable of
a pecuniary valuation — quce obliyatio videtur pretio cestimabi-
Us.' "

" May it please your reverence," said I, " after such a per-
mission, I am surprised that the first magistrates of the king-
dom should know no better. For the first president1 has
actually carried an order in Parliament to prevent certain
clerks of court from taking money fc r that very sort of pref-
erence— a sign that he is far from thinking it allowable in
judges ; and everybody has applauded this as a reform of
great benefit to all parties."

The worthy monk was surprised at this piece of intelli-
gence, and replied : " Are you sure of that ? I heard noth-

1 The president referred to was Pompone de Bellievre, on whom M
ReIiftH>n pronounced a beautiful eulogy.

USURT. 25 1

ing about it. Our opinion, recollect, is only probable ; the
contrary is probable also."

"To tell you the truth, father," said I, "people think lhat
the first president has acted more than probably well, and
that he has thus put a stop to a course of public corruption
which has been too long winked at."

" I am not far from being of the same mind," returned
he ; " but let us waive that point, and say no more about the
judges."

" You are quite right, sir," said I ; " indeed, they are not
half thankful enough for all you have done for them."

"That is not my reason," said the father; "but there is
BO much to be said on all the different classes, that we must
study brevity on each of them. Let us now say a word or
two about men of business. You are aware that our great
difficulty with these gentlemen is to keep them from usury —
an object to accomplish which our fathers have been at par-
ticular pains ; for they hold this vice in such abhorrence, that
Escobar declares ' it is heresy to say that usury is no sin ;'
and Father Bauny has filled several pages of his Summary
of Sins with the pains and penalties due to usurers. He de-
clares them ' infamous during their life, and unworthy of sep-
ulture after their death.' "

" 0 dear !" cried I, " I had no idea he was so severe."

" He can be severe enough when there is occasion for it,"
said the monk ; " but then this learned casuist, having ob-
served that some are allured into usury merely from the love
>f gain, remarks in the same place, that ' he would confer no
Email obligation on society, who, while he guarded it against
the evil effects of usury, and of the sin which gives birth to
•t, would suggest a method by which one's money might se-
cure as large, if not a larger profit, in some honest and law-
ful employment, than he could derive from usurious deal-
ings.' "

"Undoubtedly, father, there would be no more usurers
that."

" Accordingly," continued he, " our casuist has suggested

252 PROVI.VCIAI. LETTERS,

'a general method for all sorts of persons — gentlemen, presi-
dents, councillors,' <fec. ; and a very simple process it is, con-
sisting only in the use of certain words which must be pro-
nounced by the person in the act of lending his money ; after
which he may take his interest for it without fear of being a
usurer, which he certainly would be on any other plan."

" And pray what may those mysterious words be, father?"

" I will give you them exactly in his own words," said the
father; "for he has written his Summary in French, you
know, ' that it may be understood by everybody,' as he says
in the preface: 'The person from whom the loan is asked,
must answer, then, in this manner : I have got no money to
lend ; I have got a little, however, to lay out for an honest
and lawful profit. If you are anxious to have the sum you
mention in order to make something of it by your industry,
dividing the profit and loss between us, I may perhaps be
able to accommodate you. But now I think of it, as it may
be a matter of difficulty to agree about the profit, if you
will secure me a certain portion of it, and give me so much
for my principal, so that it incur no risk, we may come to
terms much sooner, and you shall touch the cash imme-
diately.' Is not that an easy plan for gaining money without
sin ? And has not Father Bauny good reason for conclud-
ing with these words : 'Such, in my opinion, is an excellent
plan by which a great many people, who now provoke the
just indignation of God by their usuries, extortions, and illicit
bargains, might save themselves, in the way of making good,
honest, and legitimate profits ?' "

" 0 sir !" I exclaimed, " what potent words these must be !
Doubtless they must possess some latent virtue to chase away
the demon of usury which I know nothing of, for, in my
poor judgment, I always thought that that vice consisted in
recovering more money than what was lent."

" You know little about it indeed," he replied. "Usury,
according to our fathers, consists in little more than the in-
tention of taking the interest as usurious. Escobar, accord-
ingly, shows you how you may avoid usury by a simple shili

THE MOHATRA. 253

of the intention. ' It would be downright usury/ says he,
' to take interest from the borrower, J we should exact it as
due in point of justice ; but if only exacted as due in point
of gratitude, it is not usury. Again, it is not lawful to have
directly the intention of profiting by the money lent ; but to
claim it through the medium of the benevolence of the bor-
rower— media benevolentia — is not usury.' These are subtle
methods ; but, to my mind, the best of them all (for we have
a great choice of them) is that of the Mobatra bargain."

"The Mohatra, father!"

" You are not acquainted with it, I see," returned he.
" The name is the only strange thing about it. Escobar will
explain it to you : ' The Mohatra bargain is effected by the
needy person purchasing some goods at a high price and on
credit, in order to sell them over again, at the same time and
to the same merchant, for ready money and at a cheap rate.'
This is what we call the Mohatra — a sort of bargain, you
perceive, by which a person receives a certain sum of ready
money, by becoming bound to pay more."

" But, sir, I really think nobody but Escobar has employed
such a term as that ; is it to be found in any other book ?"

" How little you do know of what is going on, to be sure !"
cried the father. "Why, the last work on theological mo-
rality, printed at Paris this very year, speaks of the Mohatra,
and learnedly, too. It is called Epilogus Summarum, and
is an abridgment of all the summaries of divinity — extracted
from Suarez, Sanchez, Lessius, Fagundez, Hurtado, and other
celebrated casuists, as the title bears. There you will find it
said, at p. 54, that ' the Mohatra bargain takes place when
& man who has occasion for twenty pistoles purchases from
nerchant goods to the amount of thirty pistoles, payable
within a year, and sells them back to him on the spot for
twenty pistoles ready money.' This shows you that the
Mohatra is not such an unheard-of term as you supposed."

" But, father, is that sort of bargain lawful ?"

" Escobar," replied he, " tells us in the same place, that
there are laws which prohibit it under very severe penalties."

254 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

" It is useless, then, I suppose ?"

" Not at all ; Escobar, in the same passage, suggests ex-
pedients for making it lawful : ' It is so, even though the
principal intention both of the buyer and seller is to make
money by the transaction, provided the seller, in disposing
of the goods, does not exceed their highest price, and in re-
purchasing them does not go below their lowest price, and
that no previous bargain has been made, expressly or other-
wise.' Lessius, however, maintains, that ' even though the
merchant has sold his goods, with the intention of re-purchas-
ing them at the lowest price, he is not bound to make resti-
tution of the profit thus acquired, unless, perhaps, as an act
of charity, in the case of the person from whom it has been
exacted being in poor circumstances, and not even then, if
he cannot do it without inconvenience — si commode non
potest.' This is the utmost length to which they could go."

" Indeed, sir," said I, " any further indulgence would, I
should think, be rather too much."

" Oh, our fathers know very well when it is time for them
to stop !" cried the monk. " So much, then, for the utility
of the Mohatra. I might have mentioned several other
methods, but these may suffice ; and I have now to say a
little in regard to those who are in embarrassed circumstances.
Our casuists have sought to relieve them, according to their
condition of life. For, if they have not enough of property
for a decent maintenance, and at the same time for paying
their debts, they permit them to secure a portion by making
a bankruptcy with their creditors.1 This has been decided

1 The Jesuits exemplified their own maxm. in this case by the famous
bankruptcy of their College of St. Hermenigilde at Seville. We have
a full account of this in the memorial presented to the King of Spain by
the Incklees creditors. The simple pathos and sincere earnestness of
this document preclude all suspicion of the accuracy of its statements.
By the advice of their Father Provincial, the Jesuits, in March. lf>45,
stopped payments after having borrowed upwards of 450.000 ducats,
mostly fro.n poor widows and friendless girls. This shameful affair
was exposed before the courts of justice, during a long litigation, in the
course of which it was discovered that the Jesuit fathers had been carry-
ing on extensive mercantile transactions and that instead of spending
Ihe money left them for pious u,«fs— such as ransoming captives, ana

ROBBERY". 255

by Lessius, and confirmed by Escobar, as follows : ' May a
person who turns bankrupt, with a good conscience keep
back as much of his personal estate as may be necessary to
maintain his family in a respectable way — ne indecore vivat?
I hold, with Lessius, that he may, even though he may have
acquired his wealth unjustly and by notorious crimes — ex
injustitia et notorio delicto / only, in this case, he is not at
liberty to retain so large an amount as he otherwise might.' "

" Indeed, father ! what a strange sort of charity is this,
to allow property to remain in the hands of the man who
has acquired it by rapine, to support him in his extravagance
rather than go into the hands of his creditors, to whom it le-
gitimately belongs !"

" It is impossible to please everybody," replied the father ;
" and we have made it our particular study to relieve these
unfortunate people. This partiality to the poor has induced
our great Vasquez, cited by Castro Palao, to say, that ' if one
saw a thief going to rob a poor man, it would be lawful to
divert him from his purpose by pointing out to him some
rich individual, whom he might rob in place of the other.'
If you have not access to Vasquez or Castro Palao, you will
find the same thing in your copy of Escobar ; for, as you
are aware, his work is little more than a compilation from
twenty-four of the most celebrated of our fathers. You will
find it in his treatise, entitled ' The Practice of our Society,
in the matter of Charity towards our Neighbors.' "

" A very singular kind of charity this," I observed, " to
save one man from suffering loss, by inflicting it upon an-
other ! But I suppose that, to complete the ?harity, the
charitable adviser would be bound in conscience to restore
to the rich man the sum which he had made him lose ?"

" Not at all, sir," returned the monk ; " for he did not rob
the man — he only advised the other to do it. But only
attend to this notable decision of Father Bauny, on a case
which will still more astonish you, and in which you would

almsgiving — they had devoted it to the purposes of what they termed
' our poor little house of profession. ' (Theatre Jesuitique, p. 200, &c.)

256 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

suppose there was a much stronger obligation to make res-
titution. Here are his identical words : ' A person asks a
soldier to beat his neighbor, or to set fire to the barn of a
man that has injured him. The question is, Whether, in the
absence of the soldier, the person who employed him to com-
.nit these outrages is bound to make reparation out of his
own pocket for the damage that has followed ? My opinion
is, that he is not. For none can be held bound to restitution,
where there has been no violation of justice ; and is justict
violated by asking another to do us a favor ? As to the
nature of the request which he made, he is at liberty either
to acknowledge or deny it ; to whatever side he may incline,
it is a matter of mere choice ; nothing obliges him to it, un-
less it may be the goodness, gentleness, and easiness of his
disposition. If the soldier, therefore, makes no reparation
for the mischief he has done, it ought not to be exacted from
him at whose request he injured the innocent.' "

This sentence had very nearly broken up the whole con-
versation, for I was on the point of bursting into a laugh at
the idea of the goodness and gentleness of a burner of barns,
and at these strange sophisms which would exempt from the
duty of restitution the principal and real incendiary, whom
the civil magistrate would not exempt from the halter. But
had I not restrained myself, the worthy monk, who was per-
fectly serious, would have been displeased ; he proceeded,
therefore, without any alteration of countenance, in his ob-
servations.

" From such a mass of evidence, you ought to be satisfied
now of the futility of your objections ; but we are losing
bight of our subject. To revert, then, to the succor which
our fathers apply to persons in straitened circumstances,
Lessius, among others, maintains that 'it is lawful to steal,
not only in a case of extreme necessity, but even where the
necessity is grave, though not extreme.' "

" This is somewhat startling, father," said T. " There are
rery few people in this world who do not consider their cases
of necessity to be grave ones, and to whom, accordingly, yoo

ILLICIT GAINS. 25V

rould not give the right of stealing with a good conscience,
And though you should restrict the permission to those only
who are really and truly in that condition, you open the door
to an infinite number of petty larcenies which the magistrates
would punish in spite of your 'grave necessity,' and which
you ought to repress on a higher principle — you who are
bound by your office to be the conservators, not of justice
only, but of charity between man and man, a grace which
this permission would destroy. For after all, now, is it not
a violation of the law of charity, and of our duty to our
neighbor, to deprive a man of his property in order to turn
it to our own advantage ? Such, at least, is the way I have
been taught to think hitherto."

" That will not always hold true," replied the monk ; " for
our great Molina has taught us that ' the rule of charity does
not bind us to deprive ourselves of a profit, in order thereby
to save our neighbor from a corresponding loss.' He ad-
vances this in corroboration of what he had undertaken to
prove — ' that one is not bound in conscience to restore the
goods which another had put into his hands in order to cheat
his creditors.' Lessius holds the same opinion, on the same
ground.1 Allow me to say, sir, that you have too little
compassion for people in distress. Our fathers have had
more charity than that comes to : they render ample justice
to the poor, as well as the rich ; and, I may add, to sinners
as well as saints. For, though far from having any predilec-
tion for criminals, they do not scruple to teach that the
property gained by crime may be lawfully retained. ' No
person,' says Lessius, speaking generally, 'is bound, either
by the law of nature or by positive laws (that is, by any law ),
to make restitution of what has been gained by committing a
criminal action, such as adultery, even though that action is
contrary to justice.' For, as Escobar comments on this
writer, ' though the property whi:h a woman acquires by
adultery is certainly gained in an illicit way, yet once ac-

1 Molina, t. ii., tr. 2, disp. 339, n. 8 ; Lessius, liv. ii., ch. 20, diet. 1$
n. 168.

258 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

quired, the possession of it is lawful — quamvis mulier ilhcitt
ttcquisat, licite tamen retinet, acquisita.' It is on this prin-
ciple that the most celebrated of our writers have formally
decided that the bribe received by a judge from one of the
parties who has a bad case, in order to procure an unjust de-
cision in his favor, the money got by a soldier for killing a
man, or the emoluments gained by infamous crimes, may be
legitimately retained. Escobar, who has collected this from
a number of our authors, lays down this general rule on the
xjoint, that ' the means acquired by infamous courses, such
as murder, unjust decisions, profligacy, &c., are legitimately
possessed, and none are obliged to restore them.' And
further, ' they may dispose of what they have received for
homicide, profligacy, &c.., as they please ; for the possession
is just, and they have acquired a propriety in the fruits of
their iniquity.' "

" My dear father," cried I, " this is a mode of acquisition
which I never heard of before ; and I question much if the
law will hold it good, or if it will consider assassination, in-
justice, and adultery, as giving valid titles to property."

"I do not know what your law-books may say on the
point," returned the monk ; " but I know well that our
books, which are the genuine rules for conscience, bear me
out in what I say. It is true they make one exception, in
which restitution is positively enjoined ; that is, in the case
of any receiving money from those who have no right to dis-
pose of their property, such as minors and monks. ' Unless,'
says the great Molina, ' a woman has received money from
one who cannot dispose of it, such as a monk or a minor —
nisi mulier accepisset ab eo qui alienare non potest, ut a reli-
giose et filio familias. In this case she must give back the
money.' And so says Escobar."3

" May it please your reverence," said I, " the monks,

1 Escobar, tr. 3, ex. 1, n. 23, tr. 5, ex. 5, n. 53.

• Molina, 1 . torn. i. ; De Just., tr. 2, disp. 94 ; Escobar, tr. 1, ex 8, a
50.tr 3, ex. 1, n. 23.

ILLICIT GAINS. 259

I see, are more highly favored in this way than other
people."

" By no means," he replied ; " have they not done as
much generally for all minors, in which class monks may be
viewed as continuing all their lives ? Tt is barely an act of
justice to make them an exception ; but with regard to all
other people, there is no obligation whatever to refund to
'hem the money received from them for a criminal action.
For, as has been amply shown by Lessius, 'a wicked action
may have its price fixed in money, by calculating the advan-
tage received by the person who orders it to be done, and
the trouble taken by him who carries it into execution ; on
which account the latter is not bound to restore the money
he got for the deed, whatever that may have been — homi-
cide, injustice, or a foul act' (for such are the illustrations
which he uniformly employs in this question) ; ' unless he
obtained the money from those having no right to dispose of
their property. You may object, perhaps, that he who has
obtained money for a piece of wickedness is sinning, and
therefore ought neither to receive nor retain it. But I reply,
that after the thing is done, there can be no sin either in
giving or in receiving payment for it.' The great Filiutius
enters still more minutely into details, remarking, ' that a
\nan is bound in conscience, to vary his payments for actions
of this sort, according to the different conditions of the in-
dividuals who commit them, and some may bring a higher
price than others.' This he confirms by very solid argu-
ments."1

He then pointed out to me, in his authors, some things of
this nature so indelicate that I should be ashamed to repeat
them ; and indeed the monk himself, who is a good man,
would have been horrified at them himself, were it not for

1 Tr. 31, c. 9, n. 231. — "Occulhse fornicaria? debetur pretium in cori-
scientia, et multo majore ratione. quam public®. Copia enim quam
occulta facit mulier sui corporis multo plus valet quam ea quam pub-
a»a facit meretrix ; nee ulla est lex positiva qune reddit earn incnpacen)
pre,ii. Idem dicendnOi de pretio promisso virgin! conjugatae. moniali
it cuicumque alii. Est enim omnium eadem ratio.''

260 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

the profound respect which he entertains for his fathers, and
which makes him receive with veneration everything that
proceeds from them. Meanwhile, I held my tongue, not so
much with the view of allowing him to enlarge on this mat-
ter, as from pure astonishment at finding the books of men
in holy orders stuffed with sentiments at once so horrible, so
iniquitous, and so, silly. He went on, therefore, without in-
terruption in his discourse, concluding as follows : —

" From these premises, our illustrious Molina decides the
following question (and after this, I think you will have got
enough) : ' If one has received money to perpetrate a wicked
action, is he obliged to restore it ? We must distinguish
here,' says this great man ; ' if he has not done the deed, he
must give back the cash ; if he has, he is undor no such obli-
gation !' ' Such are some of our principles touching restitu-
tion. You have got a great deal of instruction to-day ; and
I should like, now, to see what proficiency you have made.
Come, then, answer me this question : ' Is a judge, who has
received a sum of money from one of the parties before him,
in order to pronounce a judgment in his favor, obliged to
make restitution ?' "

" You were just telling me a little ago, father, that he
was not."

" I told you no such thing," replied the father ; " did I
express myself so generally ? I told you he was not bound
to make restitution, provided he succeeded in gaining the
cause for the party who had the wrong side of the question,
But if a man has justice on his side, would you have him to
purchase the success of his cause, which is his legitimate
right ? You are very unconscionable. Justice, look you, is
a debt which the judge owes, and therefore he cannot sell
it ; but he cannot be said to owe injustice, and therefore he
may lawfully receive money for it. All our leading authors,
accordingly, agree in teaching 'that though a judge is bound
to restore the money he had received for doing an act of jus-
tire, unless it was given him out of mere generosity, he is no*

1 Quo'ed by Escobar, tr. 3, ex. 2, n. 138.

SORCERY. 261

obliged to restore what he has received from a man in whose
favor he has pronounced an unjust decision.' "

This preposterous decision fairly dumbfounded me, and
while I. was musing on its pernicious tendencies, the monk
had prepared another question for me. " Answer me again,"
said he, " with a little more circumspection. Tell me now,
* if a man who deals in divination is obliged to make resti-
tution of the money he has acquired in the exercise of hia
art?'"

"Just as you please, your reverence," said I.

" Eh ! what ! — just as I please ! Indeed, but you are a
pretty scholar ! It would seem, according to your way of
talking, that the truth depended on our will and pleasure.
I see that, in the present case, you would never find it out
yourself : so I must send you to Sanchez for a solution of
the problem — no less a man than Sanchez. In the first
place, he makes a distinction between ' the case of the diviner
who has recourse to astrology and other natural means,
and that of another who employs the diabolical art. In the
one case, he says, the diviner is bound to make restitution ;
in the other he is not.' Now, guess which of them is the
party bound ?"

" It is not difficult to find out that," said I.

" I see what you mean to say," he replied. " You think
that he ought to make restitution in the case of his having
employed the agency of demons. But you know nothing
about it ; it is just the reverse. ' If,' says Sanchez, ' the
sorcerer has not taken care and pains to discover, by means
of the devil, what he could not have known otherwise, he
must make restitution — si nullam operam apposuit ut arte
diaboli id sciret ; but if he has been at that trouble, he is not
obliged.' "

" And why so, father ?"

" Don't you see ?" returned he. " It is because men may

1 Molina, 94, 99; Reginald. I. 10, 184; Filiutius, tr. 31 • Encobar
jr 3 ; Lessius, 1. 2, 14.

262 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

truly divine by the aid of the devil, whereas astrology is a
mere sham."

"But, sir, should the devil happen not to tdl the truth
(and he is not much more to be trusted than astrology), the
magician must, I should think, for the same reason, be obliged
to make restitution ?"

" Not always," replied the monk : " Distinguo, as Sanchez
says, here. ' If the magician be ignorant of the diabolic art—
si sit artis diabolicce iynarus — he is bound to restore : but if he
is an expert sorcerer, and has done all in his power to arrive
at the truth, the obligation ceases ; for the industry of such a
magician may be estimated at a certain sum of money.' "

" There is some sense in that," I said ; " for this is an ex-
cellent plan to induce sorcerers to aim at proficiency in theii
art, in the hope of making an honest livelihood, as you would
say, by faithfully serving the public."

"You are making a jest of it, I suspect," said the father:
" that is very wrong. If you were to talk in that way in
places where you were not known, some people might take it
amiss, and charge you with turning sacred subjects into ridi-
cule."

" That, father, is a charge from which I could very easily
vindicate myself ; for certain I am that whoever will be at the
trouble to examine the true meaning of my words will find
my object to be precisely the reverse ; and perhaps, sir, before
our conversations are ended, I may find an opportunity of
making this very amply apparent."

" Ho, ho," cried the monk, " there is no laughing in youf
head now."

" I confess," said I, " that the suspicion that I intended to
laugh at things sacred, would be as painful for me to incur,
as it would be unjust in any to entertain it."

" I did not say it in earnest," returned the father ; " but
let us speak more seriously."

" I am quite disposed to do so, if you prefer it ; that de-
pends upon you, father. But I must say, that I have been
tstonished to see vour friends carrying their attentions to al

ADVANTAGES OF THE MAXIMS. 263

sorts and conditions of men so far as even to regulate the
Iegitimat3 gains of sorcerers."

" One cannot write for too many people," said the monk,
" nor be too minute in particularizing cases, nor repeat the
same things too often in different books. You may be con-
vinced of this by the following anecdote, which is related by
one of the gravest of our fathers, as you may well suppose,
seeing he is our present Provincial — the reverend Father Cel-
los : ' We know a person,' says he, ' who was carrying a
large sum of money in his pocket to restore it, in obedience
to the orders of his confessor, and who, stepping into a book-
seller's shop by the way, inquired if there was anything
new ? — numquid novi ? — when the bookseller showed him a
book on moral theology, recently published ; and turning over
the leaves carelessly, and without reflection, he lighted upon
a passage describing his own case, and saw that he was un-
der no obligation to make restitution : upon which, relieved
from the burden of his scruples, he returned home with a
purse no less heavy, and a heart much lighter, than when he
left it : — abjecta scrupuli sarcina, retento auri pondere, levior
domum repetiit.'*

" Say, after hearing that, if it is useful or not to know oui
maxims ? Will you laugh at them now ? or rather, are you
not prepared to join with Father Cellot in the pious reflec-
tion which he makes on tne blessedness of that incident?
'Accidents of that kind,' he remarks, 'are, with God, the
effect of his providence ; with the guardian angel, the effect
of his good guidance ; with the individuals to whom they
happen, the effect of their predestination. From all eternity,
God decided that the golden chain of their salvation should
depend on such and such an author, and not upon a hundred
others who say the same thing, because they never happen
to meet with them. Had that man not written, this man
would not have been saved. All, therefore, who find fault
jrith the multitude of our authors, we would beseech, in the
bowels of Jesus Christ, to beware of envying others those

1 C'ellot liv. viii. de la Hierarch, c. 16, 2.

2G4 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

books which the eternal election of God and the blood of Je-
sus Christ has purchased for them !' Such are the eloquent
terms in which this learned man proves so successfully the
proposition which he had advanced, namely, ' How useful it
must be to have a great many writers on moral theology—
qnam utile sit de theologia morali mulios scribere /' '

" Father," said I, " I shall defer giving you my opinion of
that passage to another opportunity ; in the mean time, I
shall only say that as your maxims are so useful, and as it is so
important to publish them, you ought to continue to give me
further instruction in them. For I can assure you that the
person to whom I send them shows my letters to a great
many people. Not that we intend to avail ourselves of them
in our own case ; but indeed we think it will be useful for
the world to be informed about them."

"Very well," rejoined the monk, "you see I do not con-
ceal them ; and, in continuation, I am ready to furnish you, at
our next, interview, with an account of the comforts and
indulgences which our fathers allow, with the view of render-
ing salvation easy, and devotion agreeable ; so that in ad-
dition to what you have hitherto learned as to particular con-
ditions of men, you may learn what applies in general to all
classes, and thus you will have gone through a complete
course of instruction." — So saying, the monk took his leave
of me. — I am, &c.

P. S. — I have always forgot to tell you that there are dif-
ferent editions of Escobar. Should you think of purchasing
him, 1 would advise you to choose the Lyons edition, having
on the title-page the device of a lamb lying on a book sealed
with seven seals; or the Brussels edition of 1651. Both of
these are better and larger than the previous editions pub-
lished at Lyons in the years 1644 and 1646.'

1 " Since all this, a new edition has been printed at Paris by Piget,
more correct than any of the rest. But the sentiments of Escobar may
pe still better ascertained from the great work on moral theology, print-
ed at Lyons " (Note in Nicole's edition of the Letters.)

I may avail myself of this space to remark, that not one of thechargei

FATHER DANIEL'S REPLY. 265

brought against the Jesuits in this letter has been met by Father Daniel
in his celebrated reply. Indeed, after some vain efforts to contradict
about a dozen passages in the letters, he leaves avowedly more than «
hundred without daring to answer them. The pretext for thus failing
to perform what he professed to do, and what he so loudly boasts, at the
commencement, of nis being able to do, is ingenious enough. " You
will easily comprehend," says one of his characters, " that this confront-
ing of texts and quotations is not a great treat for a man of my taste
I could not stand this disagreeable labor much longer." — (Entretiens de
Cleandre et d'Eudoxe. p. 277.) We reserve our remarks on the pre-
tended falsifications charged against Pascal, till we come to his own
masterly defence of himself in the subsequent letters.

"Escobar," says M. Saint-Beuve (Port-JRoyal, t. iii., p. 52), "wai
printed forty-one times previous to 1656, and forty-two times durint
that year."— ED.

LETTER IX.

»iLSE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN INTRODUCED BY THE JESUITS—
UEVOTION MADE EASY — THEIR MAXIMS ON AMBITION, ENVY

GLUTTONY, EQUIVOCATION, AND MENTAL RESERVATIONS FEMALB

DRESS GAMING HEARING MASS.

PARIS, July 3, 1656.

SIR, — I shall use as little ceremony with you as the
worthy monk did with me, when I saw him last. The mo-
ment he perceived me, he came forward with his eyes fixed
on a hook which he held in his hand, and accosted me thus :
" ' Would you not be infinitely obliged to any one who should
open to you the gates of paradise ? Would you not give
millions of gold to have a key by which you might gain ad-
mittance whenever you thought proper ? You need not be
at such expense ; here is one — here are a hundred for much
less money.' "

At first I was at a loss to know whether the good fathei
was reading, or talking to me, but he soon put the matter
beyond doubt by adding :

" These, sir, are the opening words of a fine book, written
by Father Barry of our Society ; for I never give you any-
thing of my own."

" What book is it ?" asked I.

" Here is its title," he replied : " 'Paradise opened to
Philagio, in a Hundred Devotions to the Mother of God, eas-
ily practised.' "

" Indeed, father ! and is each of these easy devotions a
sufficient passport to heaven ?"

" It is," returned he. " Listen to what follows : ' The de-
votions to the Mother of God, which you will find in this
book, are so manv celestial kevs, which will open wide to

DEVOTION MADE EAST. 267

f ou the gates of paradise, provided you practise them ;' and
accordingly, he says at the conclusion, ' that he is satisfied
if you practise only one of them.' "

" Pray, then, father, do teach me one of the easiest of
them."

" They are all easy," he replied , " for example — ' Sa-
luting the Holy Virgin when you happen to meet her image
— saying the little chaplet of the pleasures of the Virgin—
fervently pronouncing the name of Mary — commissioning the
angels to bow to her for us — wishing to build her as many
churches as all the monarchs on earth have done — bidding her
good morrow every morning, and good night in the evening —
saying the Ave Maria every day, in honor of the heart of
Mary' — which last devotion, he says, possesses the additional
virtue of securing us the heart of the Virgin."1

"But, father," said I, " only provided we give her our own
in return, I presume ?"

" That," he replied, " is not absolutely necessary, when
a person is too much attached to the world. Hear Father
Barry : ' Heart for heart would, no doubt, be highly proper ;
but yours is rather too much attached to the world, too much
bound up in the creature, so that I dare not advise you to
offer, at present, that poor little slave which you call your
heart.' And so he contents himself with the Ave Maria
which he had prescribed."8

" Why, this is extremely easy work," said I, " and I should
-eally think that nobody will be damned after that."

" Alas !" said the monk, " I see you have no idea of the
nardness of some people's hearts. There are some, sir, who

1 " Towards the conclusion of the tenth century, new accessions
were made to the worship of the Virgin. In this age, (the tenth cen-
tury) there are to be found manifest indications of the institution of the
rosary and crown (or chaplet) of the Virgin, by which her worshippers
were to reckon the number of prayers they were to offer to this new
livinity. The rosary consists of fifteen repetitions of the Lord's Prayer,
and a hundred and fifty salutations of the blessed Virgin ; while the
trown consists in six or seven repetitions of the Lord's Prayer, and
seven times ten salutations, or Ave Mwias." (Mosheim, cent. X.)

8 These are the devotions presented at pp. 33, 59, 145. 156, 172, 258
t20 of the first edition.

268 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

would never engage to repeat, every day, even these simplt
words, Good day, Good evening, just because such a prac-
tice would require some exertion of memory. And, accord-
ingly, it became necessary for Father Barry to furnish them
with expedients still easier, such as wearing a chaplet nighl
and day on the arm, in the form of a bracelet, or carrying
about one's person a rosary, or an image of the Virgin.1
' And, tell me now,' as Father Barry says, ' if I have not pro-
vided you with easy devotions to obtain the good graces of
Mary ?' "

" Extremely easy indeed, father," I observed.

" Yes," he said, " it is as much as could possibly be done,
and I think should be quite satisfactory. For he must be a
wretched creature indeed, who would not spare a single mo-
ment in all his lifetime to put a chaplet on his arm, or a ro-
sary in his pocket, and thus secure his salvation ; and that,
too, with so much certainty that none who have tried the
experiment have ever found it to fail, in whatever way they
may have lived ; though, let me add, we exhort people not
to omit holy living. Let me refer you to the example of this,
given at p. 34 ; it is that of a female who, while she prac-
tised daily the devotion of saluting the images of the Virgin,
spent all her days in mortal sin, and yet was saved after all,
by the merit of that single devotion."

" And how so ?" cried I.

"Our Saviour," he replied, " raised her up again, for the
very purpose of showing it. So certain it is, that none can
perish who practise any one of these devotions."

" My dear sir." I observed, " I am fully aware that the
devotions to the Virgin are a powerful mean of salvation, and
that the least of them, if flowing from the exercise of faith
and charity, as in the case of the saints who have practised
them, are of great merit ; but to make persons believe that,
by practising these without reforming their wicked lives, they
will be converted by them at the hour of death, or that God
Vill raise them up again, does appear calculated rather to

1 See the devotions, at pp. 1 4, 326, 44"

DEVOTION MADE EAST. 269

keep sinners going on in their evil courses, by deluding them
with false peace and fool-hardy confidence, than to draw them
off from sin by that genuine conversion which grace alone
can effect.'"

" What does it matter," replied the monk, " by what road
we enter paradise, provided we do enter it ? as our famous
Father Binet, formerly4 our provincial, remarks on a similar
subject, in his excellent book On the Mark of Predestination,
' Be it by hook or by crook,' as he says, ' what need we care,
if we reach at last the celestial city.' "

" Granted," said I ; " but the great question is, if we will
get there at all ?"

" The Virgin will be answerable for that," returned he ;
" so says Father Barry in the concluding lines of his book :
' If, at the hour of death, the enemy should happen to put
in some claim upon you, and occasion disturbance in the little
commonwealth of your thoughts, you have only to say that
Mary will answer for you, and that he must make his appli-
cation to her.' "

" But, father, it might be possible to puzzle you, were one
disposed to push the question a little further. Who, for
example, has assured us that the Virgin will be answerable
in this case ?"

" Father Barry will be answerable for her," he replied.
" ' As for the profit and happiness to be derived from these
devotions,' he says, ' I will be answerable for that ; I will
stand bail for the good Mother.' "

" But, father, who is to be answerable for Father Barry ?"

" How !" cried the monk ; " for Father Barry ? is he not a
member of our Society ? and do you need to be told that

1 The Jesuits raised a great outcry against Pascal for having, in this
letter, as they alleged, turned the worship of the Virgin into ridicule.
Nicole seriously undertakes his defence, and draws several distinctions
between true and false devotion to the Virgin. The Mariolatry or
Mary-worship, of Pascal and the Port-Royalists, was certainly a differ-
ent sort of thing from that practised in the Church of Rome ; but it is
»ad to see the straits to which these sincere devotees were reduced, in
heir attempts to reconcile this practice with the honor due to Gjd and
' is Son.

270 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Dur Society is answerable for all the books of its members ?
It is highly necessary and important for you to know aboul
this. There is an order in our Society, by which all book-
sellers are prohibited from printing any work of our fathers
without the approbation of our divines and the permission
of our superiors. This regulation was passed by Henry III.,
10th May 1583, and confirmed by HeWy IV., 20th Decem-
ber 1603, and by Louis XIII., 14th February 1612; so that
the whole of our body stands responsible for the publica-
tions of each of the brethren. This is a feature quite pecu-
liar to our community. And, in consequence of this, not a
single work emanates from us which does not breathe the
spirit of the Society. That, sir, is a piece of information
quite apropos."1

"My good father," said I, "you oblige me very much, and
I only regret that I did not know this sooner, as it will in-
duce me to pay considerably more attention to your au-
thors."

" I would have told you sooner," he replied, " had an op-
portunity offered ; I hope, however, you will profit by the in-
formation in future, and, in the mean time, let us prosecute
our subject. The methods of securing salvation which I
have mentioned are, in my opinion, very easy, very sure, and
sufficiently numerous ; but it was the anxious wish of our
doctors that people should not stop short at this first step,
where they only do what is absolutely necessary for salva-
tion, and nothing more. Aspiring, as they do without ceas-
ing, after the greater glory of God,8 they sought to elevate

1 Father Daniel makes an ingenious attempt to take off the force of
this statement, by representing it as no more than what is done by
other societies, universities &c. (Entretiens. p. 32.) But while these
bodies acted in good faith on this rule the Jesuits (as Pascal afterwards
shows. Letter xiii.) made it subservient to their double policy. Pascal's
point was gainful by establishing the fact, that the books published by
the Jesuits had the imprimatur of the Society: and. in answer to all
that Daniel has said on the point, it may be sufficient to ask, Why not
try the simple plan of denouncing the error and censuring the author 1
'See Letter v.. p. 117.)

3 There is an allusion here to the phrase which is pprp°tually occur-
•ing in the Constitutions of the Jesuits. •' Ad majorem Dei gto<-iam — To

DEVOTION MADE EAST. 27 J

men to a higher pitch of piety ; and as men of the world
are generally deterred from devotion by the strange ideas
they have been led to form of it by some people, we have
deemed it of the highest importance to remove this obstacle
which meets us at the threshold. In this department Fa-
ther Le Moine has acquired much fame, by his work entitled
DEVOTION MADE EASY, composed for this very purpose. The
picture which he draws of devotion in this work is perfectly
charming. None ever understood the subject before him.
Only hear what he says in the beginning of his work : ' Vir-
tue has never as yet been seen aright ; no portrait of her,
hitherto produced, has borne the least verisimilitude. It is
by no means surprising that so few have attempted to scale
her rocky eminence. She has been held up as a cross-tem-
pered dame, whose only delight is in solitude ; she has been
associated with toil and sorrow ; and, in short, represented
as the foe of sports and diversions, which are, in fact, the
flowers of joy and the seasoning of life.' "

" But, father, I am sure, I have heard at least, that there
have been great saints who led extremely austere lives."

" No doubt of that," he replied ; " but still, to use the
language of the doctor, ' there have always been H number
of genteel saints, and well-bred devotees ;' and this differ-
ence in their manners, mark you, arises entirely from a differ-
ence of humors. ' I am far from denying,' says my author,
' that there are devout persons to be met with, pale and mel-
ancholy in their temperament, fond of silence and retirement,
with phlegm instead of blood in their veins, and with faces
of clay ; but there are many others of a happier complexion,
and who possess that sweet and warm humor, that genial
and rectified blood, which is the true stuff that joy is made of.'

" You see," resumed the monk, " that the love of silence
and retirement is not common to all devout people ; and that,
as I was saying, this is the effect rather of their complexion
than their piety. Those austere manners to which you refer,

the greater glory of God." which is the reason ostentatiously paraded
for almost all their laws and customs.

272 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

are, in fact, properly the character of a savage and barbarian,
and, accordingly, you will find them ranked by Father Le
Moine among the ridiculous and brutal manners of a moping
idiot. The following is the description he has drawn of one
of these in the seventh book of his Moral Pictures : ' He
has no eyes for the beauties of art or nature. Were he to
indulge in anything that gave him pleasure, he would con-
sider himself oppressed with a grievous load. On festival
days, he retires to hold fellowship with the dead. He de
lights in a grotto rather than a palace, and prefers the stump
of a tree to a throne. As to injuries and affronts, he is as
insensible to them as if he had the eyes and ears of a statue.
Honor and glory are idols with whom he has no acquaintance,
and to whom he has no incense to offer. To him a beautiful
woman is no better than a spectre ; and those imperial and
commanding looks — those charming tyrants who hold so
many slaves in willing and chainless servitude — have no more
influence over his optics than the sun over those of owls,' &c."

" Reverend sir," said I, " had you not told me that Father
Le Moine was the author of that description, I declare I
would have guessed it to be the production of some profane
fellow, who had drawn it expressly with the view of turning
the saints into ridicule. For if that is not the picture of a
man entirely denied to those feelings which the Gospel obliges
us to renounce, I confess that I know nothing of the mat-
ter."1

"You may now perceive, then, the extent of your igno-
rance," he replied ; " for these are the features of a feeble
uncultivated mind, 'destitute of those virtuous and natura.
affections which it ought to possess,' as Father Le Moine
says at the close of that description. Such is his way of
teaching ' Christian virtue and philosophy,' as he announces
in his advertisement ; and, in truth, it cannot be denied that
this method of treating devotion is much more agreeable to

1 If Rome be in the right, Pascal's notion is correct. The religion
»f the monastery is the only sort of piety or seriousness known to, o*
»anctionetl by, the Romish Church.

AMBITIOK. 273

ihe taste of the world than the old way in which they went
to work before our times."

"There can be no comparison between them," was my re-
ply, " and I now begin to hope that you will be as good aa
your word."

" You will see that better by-and-by," returned the monk.
" Hitherto I have only spoken of piety in general, but, just
to show you more in detail how our fathers have disencum-
bered it of its toils and troubles, would it not be most con-
soling to the ambitious to learn that they may maintain gen
uine devotion along with an inordinate love of greatness ?"

" What, father ! even though they should run to the ut-
most excess of ambition ?"

" Yes," he replied ; " for this would be only a venial sin,
unless they sought after greatness in order to offend God and
injure the State more effectually. Now venial sins do not
preclude a man from being devout, as the greatest saints are
not exempt from them. ' ' Ambition,' says Escobar, ' which
consists in an inordinate appetite for place and power, is of
itself a venial sin ; but when su^h dignities are coveted for
the purpose of hurting the commonwealth, or having more
opportunity to offend God, these adventitious circumstances
render it mortal.' "

" Very savory doctrine, indeed, father."

"And is it not still more savory," continued the monk,
" for misers to be told, by the same authority, ' that the rich
are not guilty of mortal sin by refusing to give alms out of
their superfluity to the poor in the hour of their greatest
need ? — scio in gravi pauperum necessitate divites non dando
tuperflua, non peccare mortaliter? "

" Why truly," said I, " if that be the case, I give up all
pretension to skill in the science of sins."

" To make you still more sensible of this," returned he,
" you have been accustomed to think, I suppose, that a good

1 The Romish distinction of sins into venial and mortal, afforded too
feir a pretext for such sophistical conclusions to be overlooked by Jes-
uitical casuists.

12*

2'/4 PROVINCIAL LKTTKRS.

opinion of one's self, and a complacency in one's own works,
is a most dangerous sin ? Now, will you not be surprised if
I can show you that such a good opinion, even thoxigh there
should be no foundation for it, is so far from being a sin, that
it is, on the contrary, the gift of God ?"

" Is it possible, father ?"

" That it is," said the monk ; " and our good Father
Garasse1 shows it in his French work, entitled Summary of
the Capital Truths of Religion : 'It is a result of commu-
tative justice that all honest labor should find its recompense
either in praise or in self-satisfaction. When men of good
talents publish some excellent work, they are justly remune-
rated by public applause. But when a man of weak parts
has wrought hard at some worthless production, and fails to
obtain the praise of the public, in order that his labor may
not go without its reward, God imparts to him a personal
satisfaction, which it would be worse than barbarous injus-
tice to envy him. It is thus that God, who is infinitely
just, has given even to frogs a certain complacency in their
own croaking.' "

" Very fine decisions in favor of vanity, ambition, and ava-
rice !" cried I ; " and envy, father, will it be more difficult to
find an excuse for it ?"

" That is a delicate point," he replied. " We require to
make use here of Father Bauny's distinction, which he lays
down in his Summary of Sins : ' Envy of the spiritual good
of our neighbor is mortal, but envy of his temporal good is
only venial.' "

" And why so, father ?"

" You shall hear," said he. " ' For the good that consists
in temporal things is so slender, and so insignificant in rela-

1 Francois Garasse was a Jesuit of Anjouleme; he died in 1631
He was much followed as a pree.cher. his sermons beinjr copiously in-
terlarded with buffoonery. His controversial works are full of fire anu
fury; and his theological Summary, to which Pascal here refers,
abounds with eccentricities. It deserves to be mentioned as some off-
let to the folly of this writer, that Father Garasse lost his life in conse-
quence of his attentions to his countrymen who were infected with the
plag-ie.

SLOTH.

275

tion to heaven, that it is of no consideration in the eyes of
God and hi& saints.' "

" But, father, if temporal good is so slender, and of so little
consideration, how do you come to permit men's lives to b*
taken away in order to preserve it ?'"

" You mistake the matter entirely," returned the monk ,
" you were told that temporal good was of no consideration
in the eyes of God, but not in the eyes of men."

"That idea never occurred to me," I replied; "and now,
it is to be hoped that, in virtue of these same distinctions,
the world will get rid of mortal sins altogether."

" Do not flatter yourself with that," said the father ;
" there are still such things as mortal sins — there is sloth,
for example."

" Nay, then, father dear !" I exclaimed, " after that, fare-
well to all ' the joys of life !' "

" Stay," said the monk, " when you have heard Escobar's
definition of that vice, you will perhaps change your tone :
' Sloth,' he observes, ' lies in grieving that spiritual things are
spiritual, as if one should lament that the sacraments are the
sources of grace ; which would be a mortal sin.' "

" O my dear sir !" cried I, " I don't think that anybody
ever took it into his head to be slothful in that way."

" And accordingly," he replied, " Escobar afterwards re-
marks : ' I must confess that it is very rarely that a person
falls into the sin of sloth.' You see now how important it is
to define things properly ?"

" Yes, father, and this brings to my mind your other defi-
nitions about assassinations, ambuscades, and superfluities.
3ut why have you not extended your method to all cases,
and given definitions of all vices in your way, so that people
may no longer sin in gratifying themselves ?"

"It is not always essential," he replied, "to accomplish

that purpose by changing the definitions of things. I may

illustrate this by referring to the subject of good cheer, whicu

is accounted one of the greatest pUasures of life, and which

1 See before, Letter vii., p. 159.

276 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Escotar thus sanctions in his ' Practice according to our So-
ciety :' ' Is it allowable for a person to eat and drink to reple-
tion, unnecessarily, and solely for pleasure ? Certainly he may,
according to Sanchez, provided he does not thereby injure his
health ; because the natural appetite may be permitted to
enjoy its proper functions.' "'

" Well, father, that is certainly the most complete pas-
sage, and the most finished maxim in the whole of your
moral system ! What comfortable inferences may be drawn
from it ! Why, and is gluttony, then, not even a venial
sin ?"

" Not in the shape I have just referred to," he replied ;
" but, according to the same author, it would be a venial sin
' were a person to gorge himself, unnecessarily, with eating
and drinking, to such a degree as to produce vomiting.'1
So much for that point. I would now say a little about the
facilities we have invented for avoiding sin in worldly conver-
sations and intrigues. One of the most embarrassing of these
cases is how to avoid telling lies, particularly when one is
anxious to induce a belief in what is false. In such cases,
our doctrine of equivocations has been found of admirable
service, according to which, as Sanchez has it, ' it is permit-
ted to use ambiguous terms, leading people to understand
them in another sense,, from that in which we understand
them ourselves.' "3

" I know that already, father," said I.

" We have published it so often," continued he, " that at
fength, it seems, everybody knows of it. But do you know
what is to be done when no equivocal words can be got ?"

" No, father."

" I thought as much," said the Jesuit ; " this is something
new, sir : I mean the doctrine of mental reservations. ' A

1 " An comedere et. bibere usque ad satietatem absque necessitate ob solar*
roluptatem, sit peccatum ? Cum Sanctio negative respnndeo, modo nay
obait valetudini, quid licite palest appetitus naturalis suis actibus frui.
(N. 102.)

» " Si quis se usque ad vomitum ingurgitet." (Esc., n. 56.)

» Op. mor., p. 2, I. 3, c. 6 n. 13.

MENTAL RESERVATIONS. 277

man may swear/ as Sanchez says in the same place, ' that ha
never did such a thing (though he actually did it), meaning
within himself that he did not do so on a certain day, or before
he was born, or understanding any other such circumstance,
while the words which he employs have no such sense as
would discover his meaning. And this is very convenient in
many cases, and quite innocent, when necessary or conducive
to one's health, honor, or advantage.' "

" Indeed, father ! is that not a lie, and perjury to boot ?"

" No," said the father ; " Sanchez and Filiutius prove
that it is not ; for, says the latter, ' it is the intention that
determines the quality of the action.'1 And he suggests a
still surer method for avoiding falsehood, which is this :
After saying aloud, / swear that I have not done that, to
add, in a low voice, to-day ; or after saying aloud, I swear,
to interpose in a whisper, that I say, and then continue
aloud, tJiat I have done that. This, you perceive, is telling
the truth."*

" I grant it," said I ; "it might possibly, however, be
found to be telling the truth in a low key, and falsehood in a
loud one ; besides, I should be afraid that many people might
not have sufficient presence of mind to avail themselves of
these methods."

" Our doctors," replied the Jesuit, " have taught, in the
same passage, for the benefit of such as might not be expert
in the use of these reservations, that no more is required of

1 Tr. 25. chap. It, n. 331, 328.

2 The method by which Father Daniel evades this charge is truly
Jesuitical. First, he attempts to involve the question in a cloud of
difficulties, by supposing extreme cases, in which equivocation may be
allowed to preserve life, &c. He has then the assurance to quote
Scripture in defence of the practice, referring to the equivocations of
Abraham which he vindicates : to those of Tobit and the angel Ra-
phael, which he applauds; and even to the sayings of our blessed Lord,
which he charges with equivocation ! (Entretiens, pp. 378, 382.)
Even Bossuet was ashamed of this abominable maxim. •' I know noth-
ing." he says, speaking of Sanchez. " more pernicious in morality, than
the opinion of that Jesuit in regard to an oath ; he maintains that the
fitention is necessary to an oath, without which, in giving a false an-
*wer to a judge, when questioned at the bar. one is not capable of per •
"ury." (Journal de 1'Abbc le Dieu. apud Dissertation sur la foi qui est
(ue au temoignage de Pascal &c.. p. 50.)

278 PROVINCIAL LETTiiKS.

them, to avoid lying, than simply to say that they have noi
done what they have done, provided ' they have, in general,
the intention of giving to their language the sense which an
able man would give to it.' Be candid, now, and confess if
you have not often felt yourself embarrassed, in consequence
of not knowing this?"

" Sometimes," said I.

"And will you not also acknowledge," continued he,
" that it would often prove very convenient to be absolved in
conscience from keeping certain engagements one may have
made?"

" The most convenient thing in the world !" I replied.

"Listen, then, to the general rule laid down by Escobar:
' Promises are not binding, when the person in making them
had no intention to bind himself. Now, it seldom happens
that any have such an intention, unless when they confirm
their promises by an oath or contract ; so that when one sim-
ply says, / will do it, he means that he will do it if he does
not change his mind ; for he does not wish, by saying that,
to deprive himself of his liberty.' . He gives other rules in
the same strain, which you may consult for yourself, and
tells us, in conclusion, ' that all this is taken from Molina
and our other authors, and is therefore settled beyond all
doubt.' "

"My dear father," I observed, "I had no idea that the
direction of the intention possessed the power of rendering
promises null and void."

" You must perceive," returned he, " what facility this
affords for prosecuting the business of life. But what has
given us the most trouble has been to regulate the commerce
between the sexes ; our fathers being more chaiy in the mat-
ter of chastity. Not but that they have discussed questions
of a very curious and very indulgent character, particularly
in reference to married and betrothed persons."

At this stage of the conversation I was made acquainted
with the most extraordinary questions you can well imagine.
He gave me enough of them to fill many letters ; but as you

FEMALE DRB88. 279

ihow my communications to all sorts of persons, and as I do
not choose to be the vehicle of such reading to those who
would make it the subject of diversion, I must decline even
giving the quotations.

The only thing to which I can venture to allude, out of all
the books which he showed me, and these in French, too, is
a passage which you will find in Father Bauny's Summary, p.
165, relating to certain little familiarities, which, provided
the intention is well directed, he explains " as passing for
gallant ;" and you will be surprised to find, at p. 148, a prin-
ciple of morals, as to the power which daughters have to dis-
pose of their persons without the leave of their relatives,
couched in these terms : " When that is done with the con-
sent of the daughter, although the father may have reason
to complain, it does not follow that she, or the person to
whom she has sacrificed her honor, has done him any wrong,
or violated the rules of justice in regard to him ; for the
daughter has possession of her honor, as well as of her body,
and can do what she pleases with them, bating death or mu-
tilation of her members." Judge, from that specimen, of the
rest. It brings to my recollection a passage from a Heathen
poet, a much better casuist, it would appear, than these rev-
erend doctors ; for he says, " that the person of a daughter
does not belong wholly to herself, but partly to her father
and partly *o her mother, without whom she cannot dispose
of it, even in marriage." And I am much mistaken if there
is a single judge in the land who would not lay down as law
the very reverse of this maxim of Father Bauny.

This is all I dare tell you of this part of our conversation,
which lasted so long that I was obliged to beseech the monk
to change the subject. He did so, and proceeded to enter-
tain me with their regulations about female attire.

" We shall not speak," he said, " of those who are actua-
ted by impure intentions ; but as to others, Escobar remarks,
that ' if the woman adorn herself without any evil intention,
but merely to gratify a natural inclination to vanity — ob na~
iuralem fastus indinationem — this is only a venial sin, or

280 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

rather no sin at all.' And Father Bauny maintains, that
' even though the woman knows the bad effect which her care
in adorning her person may have upon the virtue of those
who may behold her, all decked out in rich and precious
attire, she would not sin in so dressing." And among oth-
ers, he cites our Father Sanchez as being of the same mind."

" But, father, what do your authors say to those passages of
Scripture which so strongly denounce everything of that sort ?"

" Lessius has well met that objection," said the monk, " by
observing, ' that these passages of Scripture have the force
of precepts only in regard to the women of that period, who
were expected to exhibit, by their modest demeanor, an ex-
ample of edification to the Pagans.' "

" And where did he find that, father ?"

"It does not matter where he found it," replied he; "it ia
enough to know that the sentiments of these great men are
always probable of themselves. It deserves to be noticed,
however, that Father Le Moine has qualified this general per-
mission ; for he will on no account allow it to be extended to
the old ladies. ' Youth,' he observes, ' is naturally entitled
to adorn itself, nor can the use of ornament be condemned at
an age which is the flower and verdure of life. But there it
should be allowed to remain : it would be strangely out of
season to seek for roses on the snow. The stars alone havs
a right to be always dancing, for they have the gift of per-
petual youth. The wisest course in this matter, therefore,
for old women, would be to consult good sense and a good
mirror, to yield to decency and necessity, and to retire at tb.4
first approach of the shades of night.' "*

" A most judicious advice," I observed.

i Esc. tr. 1, ex. 8 ; Summary of Sins. c. 46, p. 1094.

" They had their Father Le Moine." said Cleandre, " and I am sin-
prised they did not oppose him to Pascal. That father had a lively
imagination and ajlorid, brilliant style ; he stood high among polished
iociety. and his Apology written against the hook entitled : The Moral
Theology of the Jesuits.' was hardly less popular than his Currycomb
fo" the Jiinsenist Pegasus." " The Society thought, perhaps." replied
Eudoxus. " that he could not easily catch the delicate and at the same
»imc easy style of Pascal. It was Father Le Moine's failing, to embel-

HEARING MASS. 281

"But," continued the monk, "just to show you how care-
ful our fathers are about everything you can think of, 1 may
mention that, after granting the ladies permission to gamble,
and foreseeing that, in many cases, this license would be of
little avail unless they had something to gamble with, they
have established another maxim in their favor, which will be
found in Escobar's chapter on larceny, n. 13 : 'A wife,' says
he, 'may gamble, and for this purpose may pilfer money
from her husband.' "

" Well, father, that is capital !"

" There are many other good things besides that," said the
father ; " but we must waive them, and say a little about
those more important maxims, which facilitate the practice of
holy things — the manner of attending mass, for example.
On this subject our great divines, Gaspard Hurtado, and
Coninck, have taught ' that it is quite sufficient to be present
at mass in body, though we may be absent in spirit, provided
we maintain an outwardly respectful deportment.' Vasquez
goes a step further, maintaining ' that one fulfils the precept
of hearing mass, even though one should go with no such
intention at all.' All this is repeatedly laid down by Esco-
bar, who, in one passage, illustrates the point by the exam-
ple of those who are dragged to mass by force, and who put
on a lixed resolution not to listen to it."

" Truly, sir," said I, " had any other person told me that,
I would not have believed it."

"In good sooth," he replied, "it requires all the support
which the authority of these great names can lend it ; and
so does the following maxim by the same Escobar, ''that
even a wicked intention, such as that of ogling the women,
joined to that of hearing mass rightly, does not hinder a man
from fulfilling the service.'1 But another very convenient

fish all he said, to be always aiming at something witty, and ne /er to
*peak simply. Perhaps, too, he did not feel himself equal for the com-
bat and did not like to commit himself." 'Entretiens de Cleandre et
i'Eudoxe, p. 7H.)

1 " Nee obest alia prava intentio. ut aspiciendi libidinose f-£*rana3.n
'Esc. tr. 1, ex. 11, n. 31.)

282 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

device, suggested by our learned brother Turrian,1 is, that
' one may hear the half of a mass from one priest, and the
other half from another ; and that it makes no difference
though he should hear first the conclusion of the one, and then
the commencement of the other.' I might also mention thai
it has been decided by several of our doctors, to be lawful
• to hear the two halves of a mass at the same time, from the
lips of two different priests, one of whom is commencing the
mass, while the other is at the elevation ; it being quite pos
sible to attend to both parties at once, and two halves of a
mass making a whole — duoe medietates unam missam consti-
tuunt.'* 'From all which,' says Escobar, 'I conclude, that
you may hear mass in a very short period of time ; if, for
example, you should happen to hear four masses going on at
the same timo, so arranged that when the first is at the com-
mencement, the second is at the gospel, the third at the con-
secration, and the last at the communion.' "

" Certainly, father, according to that plan, one may hear
mass any day at Notre Dame in a twinkling."

" Well," replied he, " that just shows how admirably wo
have succeeded in facilitating the hearing of mass. But I
am anxious now to show you how we have softened the use
of the sacraments, and particularly that of penance. It is
here that the benignity of our fathers shines in its truest
splendor ; and you will be really astonished to find that de-
votion, a thing which the world is so much afraid of, should
have been treated by our doctors with such consummate
skill, that, to use the words of Father Le Moine, in his Devo-
tion made Easy, ' demolishing the bugbear which the devil
had placed at its threshold, they have rendered it easier than
vice, and more agreeable than pleasure ; so that, in fact,
simply to live is incomparably more irksome than to live well.
Is that not a marvellous change, now ?"

"Indeed, father, I cannot help telling you a bit of mj

> Select , p. 2. d. 16. Sub. 7.

11 Bauny. Hurtado Azor &c. Escobar, " Practice for Hearing Mas*
IccordinjT to our Society." Lyons edition.

HEARING MASS. 283

mind : I am sadly afraid that you have overs! ot the mark,
and that this indulgence of yours will shock more people
than it will attract. The mass, for example, is a thing so
grand and so holy, that, in the eyes of a great many, it
would be enough to blast the credit of your doctors forever,
to show them how you have spoken of it."

" With a certain class," replied the monk, " I allow that
may be the case ; but do you not know that we accommodate
ourselves to all sorts of persons ? You seem to have lost all
recollection of what I have repeatedly told you on this point.
The first time you are at leisure, therefore, I propose that
we make this the theme of our conversation, deferring till
then the lenitives we have introduced into the confessional.
I promise to make you understand it so well that you will
never forget it."

With these words we parted, so that our next conversa-
tion, I presume, will turn on the policy of the Society. — I
am, <fec.

P. S. — Since writing the above, I have seen " Paradise
Opened by a Hundred Devotions easily Practised," by Father
Barry ; and also the " Mark of Predestination," by Father
Binet ; both of them pieces well worth the seeing.

LETTER X.

PALLIATIVES APPL'ED BY THE JESUITS TO THE SACRAMENT OP
PENANCE, IN THEIR MAXIMS REGARDING CONFESSION, SATISFAC.
TION, ABSOLUTION, PROXIMATE OCCASIONS OF SIN, CONTRITION
AND THE LOVE OF GOD.

PARIS, August 2, 1656.

SIR, — I have not come yet to the policy of the Society,
but shall first introduce you to one of its leading principles.
I refer to the palliatives which they have applied to con-
fession, and which are unquestionably the best of all the
schemes they have fallen upon to " attract all and repel
none." It is absolutely necessary to know something of this
before going any further; and, accordingly, the monk judged
it expedient to give me some instructions on the point, nearly
as follows : —

" From what I have already stated," he observed, " you
may judge of the success with which our doctors have la-
bored to discover, in their wisdom, that a great many things,
formerly regarded as forbidden, are innocent and allowable ;
but as there are some sins for which one can find no excuse,
and for which there is no remedy but confession, it became
necessary to alleviate, by the methods I am now going to
mention, the difficulties attending that practice. Thus, hav-
ing shown you, in our previous conversations, how we relieve
people from troublesome scruples of conscience, by showing
them that what they believed to be sinful was indeed quite
innocent, I proceed now to illustrate our convenient plan for
expiating what is really sinful, which is effected by making
confession as easy a process as it was formerly a painful one."

"And how do you manage that, father?"

" Why," said he, " it is by those admirable subtleties

PIOUS FINESSE. 28.J

which are peculiar to our Company, and have been styled by
our fathers in Flanders, in " The Image of the First Cen-
tury,'" 'the pious finesse, the holy artifice of devotion — •
piam et reliyiosam calliditatem, et pietatis solertiam.'* By
the aid of these inventions, as they remark in the same place,
'crimes may be expiated now-a-days alacrius — with more
zeal and alacrity than they were committed in former days,
and a great many people may be washed from their stains
almost as cleverly as they contracted them — plurimi vix citiu*
maculas contrahunt quam eluunt.' "

" Pray, then, father, do teach me some of these most sal-
utary lessons of finesse"

" We have a good number of them," answered the monk ;
" for there are a great many irksome things about confession,
and for each of these we have devised a palliative. The
chief difficulties connected with this ordinance are the shame
of confessing certain sins, the trouble of specifying the cir-
cumstances of others, the penance exacted for them, the
resolution against relapsing into them, the avoidance of the
proximate occasions of sins, and the regret for having com-
mitted them. I hope to convince you to-day, that it is now
possible to get over all this with hardly any trouble at all ;
such is the care we have taken. to allay the bitterness and
nauseousness of this very necessary medicine. For, to begin
with the difficulty of confessing certain sins, you are aware
it is of importance often to keep in the good graces of one's
confessor ; now, must it not be extremely convenient to be
permitted, as you are by our doctors, particularly Escobar
and Suarez, ' to have two confessors, one for the mortal sins
and another for the vonial, in order to maintain a fair char-
acter with your ordinary confessor — uti bonam famam apud
ordinarium tueatur — provided you do not take occasion from
thence to indulge in mortal sin ?' This is followed by an-
other ingenious contrivance for confessing a sin, even to the
ordinary confessor, without his perceiving that it was com-
mitted since the last confession, which is, ' to make a general

1 See before, p. 194. a Imago Primi Stculi, \. iii., c. 8.

286 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

confession, and huddle this last sin in a lump among the rest
which we confess.'1 And I am sure you will own that the
following decision of Father Bauny goes far to alleviate the
shame which one must feel in confessing his relapses, namely,
'that, except in certain cases, which rarely occur, the con-
fessor is not entitled to ask his penitent if the sin of which
he accuses himself is an habitual one, nor is the latter obliged
to answer such a question ; because the confessor has no
right to subject his penitent to the shame of disclosing his
frequent relapses.' "

" Indeed, father ! I might as well say that a physician has
no right to ask his patient if it is long since he had the fever.
Do not sins assume quite a different aspect according to cir-
cumstances? and should it not be the object of a genuine
penitent to discover the whole state of his conscience to his
confessor, with the same sincerity and openheartedness as if
he were speaking to Jesus Christ himself, whose place the
priest occupies ? If so, how far is he from realizing such a
disposition, who, by concealing the frequency of his relapses,
conceals the aggravations of his offence I"1

I saw that this puzzled the worthy monk, for he attempted
to elude rather than resolve the difficulty, by turning my at-
tention to another of their rules, which only goes to estab-
lish a fresh abuse, instead of justifying in the least the de-
cision of Father Bauny ; a decision which, in my opinion, is
one of the most pernicious of their maxims, and calculated
to encourage profligate men to continue in their evil habits.

» Esc. tr. 7. a. 4. n. 135 ; also, Princ., ex. 2, n. 73.

4 The practice of auricular confession was about three hundred years
old before the Reformation, having remained undetermined till the year
1 150 after Christ. The early fathers were, beyond all question decid-
»dly opposed to it. Chrysostom reasons very differently from the text.
' But I hou art ashamed to say that thou hastsinned ? Confess thy faults,
'hen. daily in thy prayer; for do I say, 'Confess them to thy fellow-
•ervant. who may reproach thee therewith ?' No ; 'onfess them to God
who healeth them." (In Ps. 1.. horn. "2.) And to whom did Augustine
make his Confessions? Was it not to the same Beinw to whom David
in the Psalms and the publican in the Gospel, made theirs ? " What
have I to do with men," says this father, "that they should hear my
confessions, as if they were to heal all my diseases!" (Confes., lib. x.
P. 3.)

CONFESSION. 287

" I grant you," replied the father, " that habit aggravates
the malignity of a sin, but it does not alter its nature ; and
that is the reason why we do not insist on people confessing
it, according to the rule laid down by our fathers, and quoted
by Escobar, ' that one is only obliged to confess the circum-
stances that alter the species of the sin, and not those that
aggravate it.' Proceeding on this rule, Father Granado*
says, ' that if one has eaten flesh in Lent, all he needs to do
is to confess that he has broken the fast, without specifying
whether it was by eating flesh, or by taking two fish meals.'
And, according to Reginald, ' a sorcerer who has employed
the diabolical art is not obliged to reveal that circumstance ;
it is enough to say that he has dealt in magic, without ex-
pressing whether it was by palmistry or by a paction with
the devil.' Fagundez, again, has decided that ' rape is not a
circumstance which one is bound to reveal, if the woman give
her consent.' All this is quoted by Escobar,1 with many
other very curious decisions as to these circumstances, which
you may consult at your leisure."

" These ' artifices of devotion' are vastly convenient in
their way," I observed.

" And yet," said the father, " notwithstanding all that,
they would go for nothing, sir, unless we had proceeded to
mollify penance, which, more than anything else, deters peo-
ple from confession. Now, however, the most squeamish
have nothing to dread from it, after what we have advanced
in our theses of the College of Clermont, where we hold that
if the confessor imposes a suitable penance, and the peni-
tent be unwilling to submit himself to it, the latter may go
home, waiving both the penance and the absolution.' Or, as
Escobar says, in giving the Practice of our Society, ' if the
penitent declare his willingness to have his penance remitted
to the next world, and to suffer in purgatory all the pains
due to him, the confessor may, for the honor of the sacra-
ment, impose a very light penance on him, particularly if he

1 Princ., ex. 2. n. 39, 41, 61, 62

288 PROVINCIAL LEITERS.

has reason to believe that his penitent would object to a
heavier one.' "

" I really think," said I, " that, if that is the case, we
ought no longer to call confession the sacrament of pen-
ance."

"You are wrong," he replied ; " for we always administer
something in the way of penance, for the form's sake."

" But, father, do you suppose that a man is worthy of re-
ceiving absolution, when he will submit to nothing painful tc
expiate his offences? And, in these circumstances, ought
you not to retain rather than remit their sins ? Are you not
aware of the extent of your ministry, and that you have the
power of binding and loosing ? Do you imagine that you
are at liberty to give absolution indifferently to all who ask
it, and without ascertaining beforehand if Jesus Christ looses
in heaven those whom you loose on earth?"'

" What !" cried the father, " do you suppose that we do
not know that ' the confessor (as one remarks) ought to sit in
judgment on the disposition of his penitent, both because he
is bound not to dispense the sacraments to the unworthy,
Jesus Christ having enjoined him to be a faithful steward,
and not give that which is holy unto dogs ; and because he
is a judge, and it is the duty of a judge to give righteous
judgment, by loosing the worthy and binding the unworthy,
and he ought not to absolve those whom Jesus Christ con-
demns.'"

" Whose words are these, father ?"

"They are the words of our father Filiutius," he replied

"You astonish me," said I; "I took them to be a quo-
tation from one of the fathers of the Church. At all events,

1 John xx. 23 : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost : Whose soever sins ye
remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain,
they are retained." All the ancient fathers such as Basil. Ambrose
Augustine, and Chrysostom. explain this remission of sins as the work
>f the Holy Ghost, and not of the apostles except ministerially, in the
use of the spiritual keys of doctrine and discipline, of intercessary praye
and of the sacraments. (Ussher's Jesuits' Challenge, p. 122. &c.) Even
the schoolmen held that the power of binding and loosing committed to
the ministers of the Church is not absolute, but must be limited byclaot
\um errante. or when no error is committed ia the use of the keys.

ABSOLUTION. 289

sir, that passage ought to make an impression on the confes-
sors, and render them very circumspect in the dispensation
of this sacrament, to ascertain whether the regret of their
penitents is sufficient, and whether their promises of future
amendment are worthy of credit."

" That is not such a difficult matter,'' replied the father ;
' Filiutius had more sense than to leave confessors in that
dilemma, and accordingly he suggests an easy way of getting
out of it, in the words immediately following : ' The confessor
may easily set his mind at rest as to the disposition of his
penitent ; for, if he fail to give sufficient evidence of sorrow,
the confessor has only to ask him if he does not detest the
sin in his heart, and if he answers that he does, he is bound
to believe it. The same thing may be said of resolutions as
to the future, unless the case involves an obligation to resti-
tution, or to avoid some proximate occasion of sin.' "

w As to that passage, father, I can easily believe that it is
Filiutius' own."

" You are mistaken though," said the father, " for he has
extracted it, word for word, from Suarez."

" But, father, that last passage from Filiutius overturns
what he had laid down in the former. For confessors can
no longer be said to sit as judges on the disposition of their
penitents, if they are bound to take it simply upon their
word, in the absence of all satisfying signs of contrition. Are
the professions made on such occasions so infallible, that no
other sign is needed ? I question much if experience has
taught your fathers, that all who make fair promises are re-
markable for keeping them ; I am mistaken if they have not
often found the reverse."

" No matter," replied the monk ; " confessors are bound to
believe them for all that ; for Father Bauny, who has probed
this question to the bottom, has concluded ' that at whatever
time those who have fallen into frequent relapses, without
giving evidence of amendment, present themselves before a
confessor, expressing their regret for the past, and a good

1 In 3 part; t. 4, disp. J2, sect. 2, n. 2.
13

J&O PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

purpose for the future, he is bound to believe them on their
simple averment, although there may be reason to presume
that such resolution only came from the teeth outwards.
Nay,' says he, ' though they should indulge subsequently to
greater excess than ever in the same delinquencies, still, in
my opinion, they may receive absolution.' * There now
that, I am sure, should silence you."

" But, father," said I, " you impose a great hardship, I
think, on the confessors, by thus obliging them to believe the
very reverse of what they see."

" You don't understand it," returned he ; " all that is
meant is, that they are obliged to act and absolve as if they
believed that their penitents would be true to their engage-
ments, though, in point of fact, they believe no such thing.
This is explained, immediately afterwards, by Suarez and Fi-
liutius. After having said that ' the priest is bound to believe
the penitent on his word,' they add, ' It is not necessary that
the confessor should be convinced that the good resolution
of his penitent will be carried into effect, nor even that he
should judge it probable ; it is enough that he thinks the
person has at the time the design in general, though he may
very shortly after relapse. Such is the doctrine of all our
authors — ita docent omnes an tores.' Will you presume to
doubt what has been taught by our authors ?"

" But, sir, what then becomes of what Father Petau' him-
self is obliged to own, in the. preface to his Public Penance,
' that the holy fathers, doctors, and councils of the Church

1 Summary of Sins. c. 46 p. 1000. 1, '2.

* Denis Petau (Dionysius Petnvius) a learned Jesuit, was born at
Orleans in 1593. and died in 1652. The catalogue of his works alon«
would fill a volume. He wrote in elegant Latin, on all subjects, gram-
mar, history, chronology. &c.. as well as theology. Perrault informs us
that he had an incredible ardor for the conversion of heretics, and had
almost succeeded in converting the celebrated Grotius — a very unlikely
story. (Les Hommes Illustres. p. 19.) His book on Public Penance
(Paris, 1644) was intended as a refutation of Arnauld's '• Frequent
Communion;" but is said to have been ill-written and unsuccessful.
Though he professed the theology of his order, he is said to have had a
kind of predilection for austere opinions, being naturally of a melan-
choly temper. When invited by the pope to visit Rome, he replied " I
»m too old iojlit" — demenager. (Diet. Univ., art. Petau.}

ABSOLUTION. 291

agree in holding it as a settled point, that the penance pre-
paratory to the eucharist must be genuine, constant, resolute,
and not languid and sluggish, or subject to after-thoughts
and relapses?'"

" Don't you observe," replied the monk, " that Father Pe-
tau is speaking of the ancient Church ? But all that is now
$o little in season, to use a common saying of our doctors,
that, according to Father Bauny, the reverse is the only true
view of the matter. ' There are some,' says he, ' who main-
tain that absolution ought to be refused to those who fall fre-
quently into the same sin, more especially if, after being of-
ten absolved, they evince no signs of amendment ; and others
hold the opposite view. But the only true opinion is, that
they ought not to be refused absolution ; and though they
should be nothing the better of all the advice given them,
though they should have broken all their promises to lead
new lives, and been at no trouble to purify themselves, still it
is of no consequence ; whatever may be said to the contrary,
the true opinion which ought to be followed is, that even in
all these cases, they ought to be absolved.' And again :
' Absolution ought neither to be denied nor delayed in the
case of those who live in habitual sins against the law of God,
of nature, and of the Church, although there should be no
apparent prospect of future amendment — etsi emendationis
futures nulla spes appareat.' "

" But, father, this certainty of always getting absolution
may induce sinners — "

" I know what you mean," interrupted the Jesuit : " but
listen to Father Bauny, q. 15 : ' Absolution may be given even
to him who candidly avows that the hope of being absolved
induced him to sin with more freedom than he would other-
wise have done.' And Father Caussin, defending this prop-
osition, says, ' that were this not true, confession would be
interdicted to the greater part of mankind ; and the only re-
KHircc left for poor sinners would be a branch and a rope !' "

> Reply to the Moral Theol, p. 211.

292 PROVINCIAL LETTEKB

a O father, how these maxims of yours will draw people
to your confessionals ! "

" Yes," he replied, " you would hardly believe what num-
bers are in the habit of frequenting them ; ' we are absolutely
oppressed and overwhelmed, so to speak, under the crowd
of our penitents — penitentium numero obruimur ' — as is said
in • The Image of the First Century.' "

** I could suggest a very simple method," said I, " to es-
cape from this inconvenient pressure. You have only to
oWige sinners to avoid the proximate occasions of sin ; that
single expedient would afford you relief at once."

" We have no wish for such a relief," rejoined the monk ;
" quite the reverse ; for, as is observed in the same book, ' the
great end of our Society is to labor to establish the virtues,
to wage war on the vices, and to save a great number of
souls.' Now, as there are very few souls inclined to quit the
proximate occasions of sin, we have been obliged to define
what a proximate occasion is. ' That cannot be called a prox-
imate occasion,' says Escobar, 'where one sins but rarely, or
on a sudden transport — say three or four times a year;" or,
as Father Bauny has it, ' once or twice in a month.'2 Again,
asks this author, ' what is to be done in the case of masters
and servants, or cousins, who, living under the same roof, are
by this occasion tempted to sin ?' "

" They ought to be separated," said I.

" That is what he says, too, ' if their relapses be very fre-
quent : but if the parties offend rarely, and cannot be sepa-
ated withoiit trouble and loss, they may, according to Sua-
rez and other authors, be absolved, provided they promise to
Bin no more, and are truly sorry for what is past.' "

This required no explanation, for he had already informed
me with what sort of evidence of contrition the confessor was
bound to rest satisfied.

"And Father Bauny," continued the monk, "permits
those who are involved in the proximate occasions of sin, ' to
remain as they are, when they cannot avoid them without

1 Esc., Practice of the Society, tr. 7, ex. 4, n. 226, 2 P. 1082, 1089

OCCASIONS OF SIN. 293

becoming the common talk of the world, or subjecting them-
selves to inconvenience.' ' A priest,' he remarks in another
work, ' may and ought to absolve a woman who is guilty of
living with a paramour, if she cannot put him away honora-
bly, or has some reason for keeping him — si non potest honeste
tjicere, aut habeat aliquam causam retinendi — provided she
promises to act more virtuously for the future.' "

" Well, father," cried I, " you have certainly succeeded in
relaxing the obligation of avoiding the occasions of sin to a
very comfortable extent, by dispensing with the duty as soon
as it becomes inconvenient ; but I should think your fathers
will at least allow it to be binding when there is no difficulty
in the way of its performance ?"

" Yes," said the father, " though even then the rule is not
without exceptions. For Father Bauny says, in the same
place, ' that any one may frequent profligate houses, with the
view of converting their unfortunate inmates, though the
probability should be that he fall into sin, having often expe-
rienced before that he has yielded to their fascinations. Some
doctors do not approve of this opinion, and hold that no man
may voluntarily put his salvation in peril to succor his neigh-
bor ; yet I decidedly embrace the opinion which they contro-
vert.' "

" A novel sort of preachers these, father ! But where does
Father Bauny find any ground for investing them with such
a mission ?"

" It is upon one of his own principles," he replied, " which
he announces in the same place after Basil Ponce. I men-
tioned it to you before, and I presume you have not forgotten
it. It is, ' that one may seek an occasion of sin, directly and
expressly — primo et per se — to promote the temporal or sph-
ktual good of himself or his neighbor.' "

On hearing these passages, I felt so horrified that I was on
Hie point of breaking out ; but, being resolved to hear him
lo an end, I restrained myself, and merely inquired : " How,
father, does this doctrine comport with that of the Gospel,

1 Theol. Mor., tr 4, De Poenit., q. 13 pp. 93, 91.

894 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

which binds us to ' pluck out the right eye,' and ' cut off
the right hand,' when they ' offend,' or prove prejudicial to
salvation ? And how can you suppose that the man who
wilfully indulges in the occasions of sins, sincerely hates
sin ? Is it not evident, on the contrary, that he has never
been properly touched with a sense of it, and that he has
not yet experienced that genuine conversion of heart, which
makes a man love God as much as he formerly loved the
creature ? "

* Indeed ! " cried he, " do you call that genuine contrition ?
It seems you do not know that, as Father Pintereau l says,
' all our fathers teach, with one accord, that it is an error, and
almost a heresy, to hold that contrition is necessary ; or that
attrition alone, induced by the sole motive, the fear of the
pains of hell, which excludes a disposition to offend, is not
sufficient with the sacrament ? ' " 2

" What, father ! do you mean to say that it is almost an
article of faith, that attrition, induced merely by fear of pun-
ishment, is sufficient with the sacrament ? That idea, I think,
is peculiar to your fathers ; for those other doctors who hold
that attrition is sufficient along with the sacrament, always
take care to show that it must be accompanied with some
love to God at least. It appears to me, moreover, that even
your own authors did not always consider this doctrine of
yours so certain. Your Father Suarez, for instance, speaks

1 The work ascribed to Pintereau was entitled, " Les Impostures et les Ig-
I orances du Libelle intitule la Theologie Morale des Je'suites : par 1'AbM
ia Boisic."

2 That is, the sacrament of penance, as it is called. " That contrition is at
kit times necessarily required for obtaining remission of sins and justifica-
tion, is a matter determined by the fathers of Trenc. But mark yet the
mystery. They equivocate with us in the term contrition, and make a dis-
tinction thereof into perfect and imperfect. The former of these is contrition
properly; the latter they call atti-ition, which, howsoever in itself it be no
true contrition, yet when the priest, with his power of forgiving sins, inter-
poses himself in the business, they tell us that attrition, by virtue of the
keys, is made contrition : that is to say, that a sorrow arising from a servile
cenr of punishment, and such a fruitless repentance as the reprobate may
fairy with them to hell, by virtue of the priest's absolution, is made so fruit-
ful that it shall serve the turn for obtaining forgiveness of sins, as if it had
been that godly sorrow which worketh repentance to salvation not to be re-
pented of. By which spiritual cozenage manv poor souls are most miser
tbly deluded." (Ussher's Tracts, p. 153.)

ATTRITION. 295

§f it thus : ' Although it is a probable opinion that attrition
is sufficient with the sacrament, yet it is not certain, and it
may be false — nonest certa, et potest esse falsa. And if it is
false, attrition is not sufficient to save a man ; and he that
dies knowingly in this state, wilfully exposes himself to the
grave peril of eternal damnation. For this opinion is neither
very ancient nor very common — -nee valde antiqua, nee mul-
ium communist Sanchez was not more prepared to hold it as
infallible, when he said in his Summary, that ' the sick man
and his confessor, who content themselves at the hour of
death with attrition and the sacrament, are both chargeable
with mortal sin, on account of the great risk of damnation
to which the penitent would be exposed, if the opinion tha
attrition is sufficient with the sacrament should not turn out
to be true.' Comitolus, too, says that ' we should not be too
sure that attrition suffices with the sacrament.' " *

Here the worthy father interrupted me. " What !" he
cried, " you read our authors then, it seems ? That is all
very well ; but it would be still better were you never to
read them without the precaution of having one of us beside
you. Do you not see, now, that, from having read them
alone, you have concluded, in your simplicity, that these pas-
sages bear hard on those who have more lately supported our
doctrine of attrition ? whereas it might be shown that nothing
could set them off to greater advantage. Only think what a
triumph it is for our fathers of the present day to have suc-
ceeded in disseminating their opinion in such short time, and
to such an extent that, with the exception of theologians, no-
body almost would ever suppose but that our modern views
.n this subject had been the uniform belief of the faithful in
all ages ! So that, in fact, when you have shown, from our
fathers themselves,, that, a few years ago, ' this opinion was
lot certain,' you have only succeeded in giving our modern
authors the whole merit of its establishment !

1 These quotations, carefully marked in the original, afford a suffi-
cient answer to Father Daniel's loner argument, which consists chiefly
•f citations from J^uit writers who hold the views above given.

296 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

" Accordingly," he continued, " our cord;?.! friend Diana,
to gratify us, no doubt, has recounted the various steps by
which the opinion reached its present position.1 ' In former
days, the ancient schoolmen maintained that contrition was
necessary as soon as one had committed a mortal sin ; since
then, however, it has been thought that it is not binding ex-
cept on festival days ; afterwards, only when some great
calamity threatened the people : others, again, that it ought
not to be long delayed at the approach of death. But our
fathers, Hurtado and Vasquez, have ably refuted all these
opinions, and established that one is not bound to contrition
unless he cannot be absolved in any other way, or at the
point of death !' But, to continue the wonderful progress
of this doctrine, I might add, what co/ fathers, Fagundez,
Granados, and Escobar, Lave decided, 'that contrition is not
necessary even at death ; because,' say they, ' if attrition
with the sacrament did not suffice at death, it would follow
that attrition would not be sufficient with the sacrament.
And the learned Hurtado, cited by Diana and Escobar, goes
still further ; for he asks, ' Is that sorrow for sin which flows
solely from apprehension of its temporal consequences, such
as having lost health or money, sufficient ? We must distin-
guish. If the evil is not regarded as sent by the hand of
God, such a sorrow does not suffice ; but if the evil is viewed
as sent by God, as, in fact, all evil, says Diana, except sin,
comes from him, that kind of sorrow is sufficient.'3 Our
Father Lamy holds the same doctrine."3

" You surprise me, father ; for I see nothing in all that
Attrition of which you speak but what is natural ; and in this
way a sinner may render himself worthy of absolution without

1 It may be remembered that Diana, though not a Jesuit, was claimed by
the Society as a favorer of their casuists. This writer was once held in suca
high repute, that he was consulted by people from all parts of the world as
t perfect oracle in cases of conscience. He is now forgotten. His style
like that of most of these scholastics, is described as " insipid, stingy, unc
"rawling." (Biogr. Univ., Anc. et Mod.)

2 Eso. Pratique de notre Socie'te', tr. 7, ex. 4, n. 91.
* Tr. 8, disp. 3, n. 13.

ATTRITION. 297

supernatural grace at all. Now everybody knows that this
is a heresy condemned by the Council."1

" I should have thought with you," he replied ; " and yel
it seems this must not be the case, for the fathers of our Col-
lege of Clermont have maintained (in their Theses of the 23rd
May and 6th June 1644) 'that attrition may be holy and
sufficient for the sacrament, although it may not be super-
natural :' and (in that of August 1643) ' that attrition, though
merely natural, is sufficient for the sacrament, provided it ia
honest.' I do not see what more could be said on the sub-
ject, unless we choose to subjoin an inference, which may be
easily drawn from these principles, namely, that contrition, so
far from being necessary to the sacrament, is rather preju-
dicial to it, inasmuch as, by washing away sins of itself, it
would leave nothing for the sacrament to do at all. That is,
indeed, exactly what the celebrated Jesuit Father Valencia
remarks. (Tom. iv., disp. 7, q. 8, p. 4.) ' Contrition,' says
he, 'is by no means necessary in order to obtain the princi-
pnl benefit of the sacrament ; on the contrary, it is rather an
obstacle in the way of it — imo obstat potius quominus effectus
seguatur.' Nobody could well desire more to be said in
commendation of attrition."2

" I believe that, father," said I ; " but you must allow me to
tell you my opinion, and to show you to what a dreadful
length this doctrine leads. When you say that ' attrition,
induced by the mere dread of punishment,' is sufficient, with
the sacrament, to justify sinners, does it not follow that a
person may always expiate his sins in this way, and thus be

1 Of Trent. Nicole attempts to prove that the " imperfect contrition"
of this Council includes the love of God, and that they condemned as
heretical the opinion, that <: any could prepare himself for grace with-
out a movement of the Holy Spirit." He is more successful in showing
hat the Jesuits were heretical when judged by Augustine and the Holy
Scriptures. (Note 2, sur la x. Lettre.)

2 The Jesuits are so fond of their "attrition," or purely natural repent-
Mice, that one of their own theologians (Cardinal Francis Tolet) having
condemned it, they falsiriecl the passage in a subsequent edition, making
him speak the opposite sentiment. The forgery was exposed ; but the
worthy fathers, according to custom, allowed it to pass without notice, ad
Vtajorem Dei gloriam. (Nicole, iii. 95.)

298 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

laved without ever having loved God all his lifetime ? Would
your fathers venture to hold that ? "

" I perceive," replied the monk, " from the strain of your
remarks, that you need some information on the doctrine of
our fathers regarding the love of God. This is the last fea-
ture of their morality, and the most important of all. You
must have learned something of it from the passages about
contrition which I have quoted to you. But here are others
etill more definite on the point of love to God — Don't inter
rupt me, now ; for it is of importance to notice the connection.
Attend to Escobar, who reports the different opinions of our
authors, in his ' Practice of the Love of God according to
our Society.' The question is : " When is one obliged to
have an actual affection for God ? ' Suarez says, it is enough
if one loves him before being articulo mortis — at the point
of death — without determining the exact time. Vasquez,
that it is sufficient even at the very point of death. Others,
when one has received baptism. Others, again, when one is
bound to exercise contrition. And others, on festival days.
But our father, Castro Palao, combats all these opinions, and
with good reason — merito. Hurtado de Mendoza insists that
we are obliged to love God once a-year; and that we ought
to regard it as a great favor that we are not bound to do it
oftener. But our Father Coninck thinks that we are bound
to it only once in three or four years ; Henriquez, once in
five years ; and Filiutius says that it is probable that we are
not strictly bound to it even once in five years. How often,
then, do you ask ? Why, he refers it to the judgment of the
judicious."

I took no notice of all this badinage, in which the ingenu-
ity of man seems to be sporting, in the height of insolence,
with the love of God.

" But," pursued the monk, " our Father Antony Sirraond
surpasses all on this point, in his admirable book, ' The De-
fence of Virtue,' 1 where, as he tells the reader, ' he speaks
French in France,' as follows : ' St. Thomas says that we

1 Tr. 1, ex. 2, n. 21; and tr. 5, ex. 4, n. 8.

LOVE TO GOD. 299

»re obliged to love God as soon as we come to the use of
reason : that is rather too soon ! Scotus says, every Sunday,
pray, for what reason ? Others say, when we are sorely
tempted : yes, if there be no other way of escaping the
temptation. Scotus says, when we have received a benefit
from God : good, in the way of thanking him for it. Others
say, at death : rather late ! As little do I think it binding
at the reception of any sacrament : attrition in such cases is
quite enough, along with confession, if convenient. Suarez
says that it is binding at some time or another ; but at what
time ? — he leaves you to judge of that for yourself — he does
not know ; and what that doctor did not know I know not
who should know.' In short, he concludes that we are not
strictly bound to more than to keep the other commandments,
without any affection for God, and without giving him our
hearts, provided that we do not hate him. To prove this is
the sole object of his second treatise. You will find it in
every page ; more especially where he says : ' God, in com-
manding us to love him, is satisfied with our obeying him in
his other commandments. If God had said, Whatever obe-
dience thou yieldest me, if thy heart is not given to me, I will
destroy thee ! — would such a motive, think you, be well fit-
ted tc promote the end which God must, and only can, have
in view ? Hence it is said that we shall love God by doing
his will, a* if we loved him with affection, as if the motive in
this case was real charity. If that is really our motive, so '
•nuch the better ; if not, still we are strictly fulfilling the
•ommandment of love, by having its works, so that (such is
the goodness of God !) we are commanded, not so much to
love him, as not to hate him.'

" Such is the way in which our doctors have discharged
men from the ' painful' obligation of actually loving God.
And this doctrine is so advantageous, that our Fathers An-
&at, Pintereau, Le Moine, and Antony Sirmond himself,
nave strenuously defended it when it has been attacked. You
have only to consult their answers to the ' Moral Theology.'
That of Father Pintereau, in particular, will enable you to

800 PROVINCIAL LE TTERS.

form some idea of the value of this dispensation, from the
price which he tells us that it cost, which is no less than the
blood of Jesus Christ. This crowns the whole. It appears,
that this dispensation from the ' painful ' obligation to love
God, is the privilege of the Evangelical law, in opposition to
the Judaical. ' It was reasonable,' he says, ' that, under the
law of grace in the New Testament, God should relieve us
from that troublesome and arduous obligation which existed
under the law of bondage, to exercise an act of perfect con-
trition, in order to be justified ; and that the place of this
should be supplied by the sacraments, instituted in aid of an
easier disposition. Otherwise, indeed, Christians, who are
the children, would have no greater facility in gaining the
good graces of their Father than the Jews, who were the
slaves, had in obtaining the mercy of their Lord and
Master.' '"

" 0 father !" ciied I ; "no patience can stand this any
longer. It is impossible to listen without horror to the sen-
timents I have just heard."

" They are not my sentiments," said the monk.

" I grant it, sir," said I ; " but you feel no aversion to
them ; and, so far from detesting the authors of these max-
.-ms, you hold them in esteem. Are you not afraid that your
consent may involve you in a participation of their guilt ?
and are you not aware that St. Paul judges worthy of death,

1 Shocking as these principles are, it might be easy to show that they
necessarity flow from the Romish doctrine, which substitutes the imper-
"ect obedience of the sinner as the meritorious ground of justification, in
the room of the all-perfect obedience and oblation of the Son of God,
•whith renders it necessary to lower the divine standard of duty. The
attempt of Father Daniel to escape from the serious charge in the text
Under a cloud of metaphysical distinctions about affective and effective
love, is about as lame as the argument he draws from the merciful
sharacter of the Gospel, is dishonorable to the Saviour, who " came not
D destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil." But this "confusion
worse confounded" arises from putting love to God out of its proper
Dlace. and representing it as the price of our pardon, instead of the fruit
of faith in pardoning mercy. Arnauld was as far wrong on this point
as the Jesuits ; and it is astonishing that he did not discover in their
system the radical error of his own creed carried out to its proper con-
lequences. (Reponse Gen. au Livre de M. Aniauld, par Elie Merlat
p. 30.)

PASCAL'S INDIGNANT DISCLOSURE. 301

Dot only the authors of evil things, but also ' those who have
pleasure in them that do them ?' Was it not enough to
have permitted men to indulge in so many forbidden things?
under the covert of your palliations? Was it necessary to
go still further, and hold out a bribe to them to commit even
those crimes which you found it impossible to excuse, by
offering them an easy and certain absolution ; and for this
purpose nullifying the power of the priests, and obliging
them, more as slaves than as judges, to absolve the most in-
veterate sinners — without any amendment of life — without
any sign of contrition except promises a hundred times bro-
ken— without penance ' unless they choose to accept of it '—
and without abandoning the occasions of their vices, ' if they
should thereby be put to any inconvenience ?'

" But your doctors have gone even beyond this ; and the
license which they have assumed to tamper with the most
holy rules of Christian conduct amount to a total subversion
of the law of God. They violate ' the great commandment
on which hang all the law and the prophets ; ' they strike at
the very heart of piety ; they rob it of the spirit that giveth
life ; they hold that to love God is not necessary to salva-
tion ; and go so far as to maintain that ' this dispensation
from loving God is the privilege which Jesus Christ has in-
troduced into the world !' This, sir, is the very climax of
impiety. The price of the blood of Jesus Christ paid to
obtain us a dispensation from loving him ! Before the incar-
nation, it seems men were obliged to love God ; but since

God has so loved the world as to give his only-begotten
Son,' the world, redeemed by him, is released from loving
him ! Strange divinity of our days — to dare to take off the
'anathema' which St. Paul denounces on those ' that love
not the Lord Jesus ! ' To cancel the sentence of St. John :
' He that loveth not, abideth in death ! ' and that of Jesus
Christ himself: 'He that loveth me not keepeth not my pre-
Repts ! ' and thus to render those worthy of enjoying God
trough eternity who never loved God all their life ! * Be-

1" Nothing on this point," gays Nicole in a note here," can be finer

302 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

hold the Mystery of Iniquity fulfilled ! Open your eyes at
length, my dear father, and if the other aberrations of your
casuists have made no impression on you, let these last,
by their very extravagance, compel you to abandon them.
This is what I desire from the bottom of my heart, for your
own sake and for the sake of your doctors ; and my prayer
to God is, that he would vouchsafe to convince them how
false the light must be that has guided them to such preci-
pices ; and that he would fill their hearts with that love of
himself from which they have dared to give man a dis-
pensation !"

After some remarks of this nature, I took my leave of the
monk, and I see no great likelihood of my repeating my
visits to him. This, however, need not occasion you any
regret; for, should it be necessary to continue these com-
munications on their maxims, I have studied their books suf-
ficiently to tell you as much of their morality, and more,
perhaps, of their policy, than he could have done himself. —
I am, <fec.

than the prosopopeia in which Despre"aux(Boileau) introduces God as judg-
ng mankind." He then quotes a long passage from the Twelfth Epistle
of that poet, beginning —

" Quand Dieu viendra juger les vivans et les morts," &c.

Boileau was the personal friend of Arnauld and Pascal, and satirized the
Jet-airs with such pleasant irony that Father la Chaise, the confessor of
Louis XIV., though himself a Jesuit, is said to have taken a pleasure in re-
•eatiug his verses.

LETTER XI.

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS.1

BIDICULE A FAIR WEAPON WHEN EMPLOYED AGAINST AB-
SURD OPINIONS — RULES TO BE OBSERVED IN THE U8K
OF THIS WEAPON — THE PROFANE BUFFOONERY OF FA-
THERS LE MOINE AND GARASSK.

August 18, 1656.

REVEREND FATHERS, — I have seen the letters which you
are circulating in opposition to those which I wrote to one
of my friends on your morality ; and I perceive that one of
the principal points of your defence is, that I have not spo-
ken of your maxims with sufficient seriousness. This charge
you repeat in all your productions, and carry it so far as to
allege, that I have been " guilty of turning sacred things into
ridicule."

Such a charge, fathers, is no less surprising than it is un-
tounded. Where do you find that I have turned sacred
things into ridicule ? You specify " the Mohatra contract,
and the story of John d'Alba." But are these what you
call " sacred things ? " Does it really appear to you that the
Mohatra is something so venerable that it would be blas-
phemy not to speak of it with respect ? And the lessons of
Father Bauny on larceny, which led John d'Alba to practise
it at your expense, are they so sacred as to entitle you to
stigmatize all who laugh at them as profane people ?

What, fathers ! must the vagaries of your doctors pass for
the verities of the Christian faith, and no man be allowed to
ridicule Escobar, or the fantastical and unchristian dogmas

» In this and the following letters, Pascal changes his style, from that of
dialogue to that of direct address, and from that of the liveliest irony to
that of serious invective and poignant satire.

304 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

of your authors, without being stigmatized as jesting at
religion ? Is it possible you can have ventured to reiterate
BO often an idea so utterly unreasonable ? Have you no fears
that, in blaming me for laughing at your absurdities, you
may only afford me fresh subject of merriment ; that you
may make the charge recoil on yourselves, by showing that
I have really selected nothing from your writings as the mat-
ter of raillery, but what was truly ridiculous ; and that thus,
in making a jest of your morality, I have been as far fron.
jeering at holy things, as the doctrine of your casuists is fai
from the holy doctrine of the Gospel ?

Indeed, reverend sirs, there is a vast difference between
laughing at religion, and laughing at those who profane it by
their extravagant opinions. It were impiety to be wanting
in respect for the verities which the Spirit of God has re-
vealed ; but it were no less impiety of another sort, to be
wanting in contempt for the falsities which the spirit of man
opposes to them.1

For, fathers (since you will force me into this argument),
I beseech you to consider that, just in proportion as Chris-
tian truths are worthy of love and respect, the contrary
errors must deserve hatred and contempt ; there being two
things in the truths of our religion — a divine beauty that
renders them lovely, and a sacred majesty that renders them
venerable ; and two things also about errors — an impiety,
.hat makes them horrible, and an impertinence that renders
them ridiculous. For these reasons, while the saints have
ever cherished towards the truth the twofold sentiment of
love and fear — the whole of their wisdom being comprised
between fear, which is its beginning, and love, which is its
end — they have, at the same time, entertained towards error
the twofold feeling of hatred and contempt, and their zeal
has been at once employed to repel, by force of reasoning,

1 " Religion, they tell us, ought not to be ridiculed ; and they tell us truth :
jret surely the corruptions in it may; for we are taught by the tritest maxim
in the world, that religion being the best of things, its corruptions are likel
to be the worst." (Swift's Apology for a Tale of a Tub.)

RIDICULE USED IN SCRIPTURE. 305

the malice of the wicked, and to chastise, by the aid of ridi-
cule, their extravagance and folly.

Do not then expect, fathers, to make people believe that
it is unworthy of a Christian to treat error with derision.
Nothing is easier than to convince all who were not aware of
it before, that this practice is perfectly just — that it is com-
mon with the fathers of the Church, and that it is sanctioned
by Scripture, by the example of the best of saints, and even
by that of God himself.

Do we not find that God at once hates and despises sin-
ners ; so that even at the hour of death, when their condition
is most sad and deplorable, Divine Wisdom adds mockery
to the vengeance which consigns them to eternal punishment?
u In interitu vestro ridebo et subsannabo — I will laugh at
your calamity." The saints, too, influenced by the same feel-
ing, will join in the derision ; for, according to David, when
they witness the punishment of the wicked, " they shall fear,
and yet laugh at it — videbunt justi et timebunt, et super eum
ridebunt." And Job says : "Innocens subsannabit eos — The
innocent shall laugh at them."

It is worthy of remark here, that the very first words
which God addressed to man after his fall, contain, in the
opinion of the fathers, " bitter irony " and mockery. After
Adam had disobeyed his Maker, in the hope, suggested by
the devil, of being like God, it appears from Scripture that
God, as a punishment, subjected him to death ; and after
having reduced him to this miserable condition, which was
due to his sin, he taunted him in that state with the follow-
ing terms of derision : " Behold, the man has become as one
of us ! — Ecce, Adam quasi unus ex nobis ! " — which, accord-
.ng to St. Jerome2 and the interpreters, is " a grievous and
cutting piece of irony," with which God " stung him to the

1 Prov. i. 26 ; Ps. lii. 6 ; Job xxii. 19. In the first passage, the figure ia
tvidently what theologians call anthropopathic, or speaking of God after
!he manner of men, and denotes his total disregard of the wicked 'n the
iay of their calamity.

- In most of the editions, it is " St. Chrysostom," but I have followed
that of Nicole.

106 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

quick." " Adam," says Rupert, " deserved to be taunted in
this manner, and he would be naturally made to feel his folly
more acutely by this ironical expression than by a more seri-
ous one." St. Victor, after making the same remark, adds,
" that this irony was due to his sottish credulity, and that
this species of raillery is an act of justice, merited by him
against whom it was directed."1

Thus you see, fathers, that ridicule is, in some cases, a
very appropriate means of reclaiming men from their arrors,
and that it is accordingly an act of justice, because, as Jere-
miah says, " the actions of those that err are worthy of de-
rision, because of their vanity — vana sunt et risu digna"
And so far from its being impious to laugh at them, St. Au-
gustine holds it to be the effect of divine wisdom : " The
wise laugh at the foolish, because they are wise, not after
their own wisdom, but after that divine wisdom which shall
laugh at the death of the wicked."

The prophets, accordingly, filled with the Spirit of God,
have availed themselves of ridicule, as we find from the ex-
amples of Daniel and Elias. In short, examples of it are
not wanting in the discourses of Jesus Christ himself. St.
Augustine remarks that, when he would humble Nicodemus,
who deemed himself so expert in his knowledge of the law,
K perceiving him to be puffed up with pride, from his rank

1 We may be permitted to question the correctness of this interpreta-
tion, and the propriety of introducing it in the present connection. For
the former, the fathers, not Pascal are responsible ; as to the latter, it
was certainly superfluous, and not very happy, to have recourse to such
an example, to justify the use of ridicule as a weapon against religious
follies. Among other writers the Abbe D'Artigny is very severe airainat
our author on this score, and quotes with approbation the following
censure on him : " Is it possible that a man of such genius and erudi-
tion could justify the most criminal excesses by such respectable exam-
ples 1 Not content with making witty old fellows of the prophets and
the holy fathers, nothing will serve him but to make us believe that the
Almighty himself has furnished us with precedents for the most bitter
glanders and pleasantries — an evident proof that there is nothing that
an author will not seek to justify when he follows his own passion.'
(Nouveaux Memoires D'Artigny, ii. 185.) How solemnly and elo-
auently will a man write down all such satires, when the jest is pointed
against himself and his party ! D'Artigny quotes, within a few page*,
with evident relish, a bitter satire against a Protestant minister

RIDICULE USED BY THE FATHERS. 807

AS doctor of the Jews, he first beats down his presumption
by the magnitude of his demands, and having reduced him
BO low that he was unable to answer, What ! says he, you a
master in Israel, and not know these things ! — as if he had
said, Proud ruler, confess that thou knowest nothing." St.
Chrysostom and St. Cyril likewise observe upon this, that
" he deserved to be ridiculed in this manner."

You may learn from this, fathers, that should it so hap-
pen, in our day, that persons who enact the part of " mas-
ters " among Christians, as Nicodemus and the Pharisees did
among the Jews, show themselves so ignorant of the first
principles of religion as to maintain, for example, that "a
man may be saved who never loved God all his life," we only
follow the example of Jesus Christ, when we laugh at such
a combination of ignorance and conceit.

I am sure, fathers, these sacred examples are sufficient to
convince you, that to deride the errors and extravagances of
man is not inconsistent with the practice of the saints ; other-
wise wo must blame that of the greatest doctors of the
Church, who have been guilty of it — such as St. Jerome, in
his letters and writings against Jovinian, Vigilantius, and the
Pelagiars ; Tertullian, in his Apology against the follies of
idolaters ; St. Augustine against the monks of Africa, whom
he styles " the hairy men ;" St. Irenaeus the Gnostics ; St.
Bernard and the other fathers of the Church, who, having
been the imitators of the apostles, ought to be imitated by
the faithful in all time coming ; for, say what we will, they
are the true models for Christians, even of the present
day.

In following such examples, I conceived that I could not
go far wrong ; and, as I think I have sufficiently established
this position, I shall only add, in the admirable words of
Tertullian, which give the true explanation of the whole of
my proceeding in this matter : " What I have now done is
only a little sport before the real combat. I have rather in-
dicated the wounds that might be given you, than inflicted
any. If the reader has met. with passages which have et-

808 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

cited his risibility, he must ascribe this to the subjects them-
selves. There are many things which deserve to be held up
in this way to ridicule and mockery, lest, by a serious refuta-
tion, we should attach a weight to them which they do not
deserve. Nothing is more due to vanity than laughter ; and
it is the Truth properly that has a right to laugh, because
she is cheerful, and to make sport of her enemies, because
she is sure of the victory. Care must be taken, indeed, that the
raillery is not too low, and unworthy of the truth ; but, keep-
ing this in view, when ridicule may be employed with effect,
it is a duty to avail ourselves of it." Do you not think
fathers, that this passage is singularly applicable to our sub-
ject ? The letters which I have hitherto written are " merely
a little sport before a real combat." As yet I have been
only playing with the foils, and "rather indicating the
wounds that might be given you than inflicting any." I have
merely exposed your passages to the light, without making
scarcely a reflection on them. "If the reader has met with
any that have excited his risibility, he must ascribe this to
the subjects themselves." And, indeed, what is more fitted
to raise a laugh, than to see a matter so grave as that of
Christian morality decked out with fancies so grotesque as
those in which you have exhibited it ? One is apt to form
such high anticipations of these maxims, from being told that
" Jesus Christ himself has revealed them to the fathers of
the Society," that when one discovers among them such ab-
surdities as " that a priest receiving money to say mass, may
fake additional sums from other persons by giving up to them
his own share in the sacrifice ;" " that a monk is not to be ex
communicated for putting off his habit, provided it is to
dance, swindle, or go incognito into infamous houses ;" and
" that the duty of hearing mass may be fulfilled by listening
to four quarters of a mass at once from different priests" —
tfhen, I say, one listens to such decisions as these, the sur-
prise is such that it is impossible to refrain from laughing ;
for nothing is more calculated to produce that emotion than
a startling contrast between the thing looked for and the

ABSURDITIES OF THE CASUISTS. 809

thing looked at. And why should the greater part of these
maxims be treated in any other way ? As Tertullian says,
u To treat them seriously would be to sanction them."

What ! is it necessary to bring up all the forces of Scrip-
ture and tradition, in order to prove that running a sword
through a man's body, covertly and behind his back, is to
murder him in treachery ? or, that to give one money as a
motive to resign a benefice, is to purchase the benefice ?
Yes, there are things which it is duty to despise, and which
" deserve only to be laughed at." In short, the remark of
that ancient author, " that nothing is more due to vanity
than derision," with what follows, applies to the case before
us so justly and so convincingly, as to put it beyond all
question that we may laugh at errors without violating pro-
priety.

And let me add, fathers, that this may be done without
any breach of charity -either, though this is another of the
charges you bring against me in your publications. For, ac-
cording to St. Augustine, " charity may sometimes oblige us
to ridicule the errors of men, that they may be induced to
jaup-h at them in their turn, and renounce them — Hcec tu
wisericorditer irride, ut eis ridenda ac fugienda commendea."
And the same charity may also, at other times, bind us to
lepel them with indignation, according to that other saying
of St. Gregory of Nazianzen : " The spirit of meekness and
charity hath its emotions and its heats." Indeed, as St. Au-
gustine observes, "who would venture to say that truth
ought to slaud disarmed against falsehood, or that the ene-
mies of the faith shall be at liberty to frighten the faithful
with hard words, and jeer at them with lively sallies of wit ;
while the Catholics ought never to write except with a cold-
ness of style enough to set the reader asleep ?"

Is it not obvious that, by following such a course, a wide
floor would be opened for the introduction of the most ex-
•.••avagant and pernicious dogmas into the Church ; while
lone would be allowed to treat them with contempt, through
tear of being charged with violating propriety, or (o confute

110 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

them with indignation, from the dread of being taxed with
want of charity?

Indeed, fathers ! shall you be allowed to maintain, " tha*
it is lawful to kill a -man to avoid a box on the ear or an
affront," and must nobody be permitted publicly to expose
a public error of such consequence ? Shall you be at liberty
to say, " that a judge may in conscience retain a fee received
for an act of injustice," and shall no one be at liberty to
contradict you ? Shall you print, with the privilege and ap-
probation of your doctors, " that a man may be saved with-
out ever having loved God ; " and will you shut the mouth
of those who defend the true faith, by telling them that they
would violate brotherly love by attacking you, and Christian
modesty by laughing at your maxims ? I doubt, fathers, if
there be any persons whom you could make believe this ; if
however, there be any such, who are really persuaded that,
by denouncing your morality, I have been deficient in the
charity which I owe to you, I would have them examine,
with great jealousy, whence this feeling takes its rise within
them. They may imagine that it proceeds from a holy zeal,
which will not allow them to see their neighbor impeached
without being scandalized at it ; but I would entreat them
to consider, that it is not impossible that it may flow from
another source, and that it is even extremely likely that it
may spring from that secret, and often self-concealed dissat-
isfaction, which the unhappy corruption within us seldom
fails to stir up against those who oppose the relaxation of
morals. And to furnish them with a rule which may enable
them to ascertain the real principle from which it proceeds*
I will ask them, if, while they lament the way in which the
religious l have been treated, they lament still more the man-
ner in which these religious have treated the truth. If they
nre incensed, not only against the letters, but still more
against the maxims quoted in them, I shall grant it to be
baraly possible that their resentment proceeds from some

1 "Religious," is a general term, applied in the Romish Church to all
who are in holy orders.

CHARGE OF UNCHAKITABLENESS. 311

real, though not of the most enlightened kind ; and, in thig
case, the passages I have just cited from the fathers will
serve to enlighten them. But if they are merely angry at
the reprehension, and not at the things reprehended, truly,
fathers, I shall never scruple to tell them that they are
grossly mistaken, and that their zeal is miserably blind.

Strange zeal, indeed ! which gets angry at those that cen-
sure public faults, and not at those that commit them •
Novel charity this, which groans at seeing error confuted,
but feels no grief at seeing morality subverted by that error
If these persons were in danger of being assassinated, pray,
would they be offended at one advertising them of the strata-
gem that had been laid for them ; and instead of turning ont
of their way to avoid it, would they trifle away their time in
whining about the little charity manifested in discovering to
them the criminal design of the assassins ? Do they get
waspish when one tells them not to eat such an article ol
food, because it is poisoned ? or not to enter such a city, be-
cause it has the plague ?

Whence comes it, then, that the same persons who set
down a man as wanting in chanty, for exposing maxims hurt-
ful to religion, would, on the contrary, think him equally de-
ficient in that grace were he not to disclose matters hurtful
to health and life, unless it be from this, that their fondness
for life induces them to take in good part every hint that con-
tributes to its preservation, while their indifference to truth
leads them, not only to take no share in its defence, but even
to view with pain the efforts made for the extirpation of false-
hood?

Let them seriously ponder, as in the sight of God, how
shameful, and how prejudicial to the Church, is the morality
which your casuists are in the habit of propagating; the
scandalous and unmeasured license which they are introdu-
cing into public manners ; the obstinate and violent hardihood
with which you support them. And if they do not think it
full time to rise against such disorders, their blindness is as
much to be pitied as yours., fathers ; and you and they have

H2 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

equal reason to dread that saying of St. Augustine, founded
on the words of Jesus Christ, in the Gospel : " Woe to the
blind leaders ! woe to the blind followers ! — V<R coeds ducen-
tibus ! VCR ceecis sequentibus ! "

But to leave you no room in future, either to create such
impressions on the minds of others, or to harbor them in your
own, I shall tell you, fathers (and I am ashamed I should
have to teach you what I should have rather learnt from
you), the marks which the fathers of the Church have given
for judging when our animadversions flow from a principle
of piety and charity, and when from a spirit of malice and
impiety.

The first of these rules is, that the spirit of piety always
prompts us to speak with sincerity and truthfulness ; where-
as malice and envy make use of falsehood and calumny.
" Splendentia et vehementia, sed rebus veris — Splendid and
vehement in words, but true in things," as St. Augustine
says. The dealer in falsehood is an agent of the devil. No
direction of the intention can sanctify slander ; and though
the conversion of the whole earth should depend on it, no
/nan may warrantably calumniate the innocent : because none
may do the least evil, in order to accomplish the greatest
good ; and, as the Scripture says, " the truth of God stands
in no need of our lie." St. Hilary observes, that "it is the
bounden duty of the advocates of truth, to advance nothing
in its support but true things." Now, fathers, I can declare
before God, that there is nothing that I detest more than the
slightest possible deviation from the truth, and that I have ever
taken the greatest care, not only not to falsify (which would be
horrible), but not to alter or wrest, in the slightest possible
degree, the sense of a single passage. So closely have I ad-
nered to this rule, that if I may presume to apply them to
the present case, I may safely say, in the words of the same
St. Hilary : " If we advance things that are false, let our
statements be branded with infamy ; but if we can show that
they are public and notorious, it is no breach of apostolic
modesty or liberty to expose them."

DISCRETION OF THE LETTERS. 313

It is not enough, however, to tell nothing but the truth ;
we must not always tell everything that is true ; we should
publish only those things which it is useful to disclose, and
not those which can only hurt, without doing any good. And,
therefore, as the first rule is to speak with truth, the second
is to speak with discretion. " The wicked," says St. Augus-
tine, " in persecuting the good, blindly follow the dictates of
their passion ; but the good, in their prosecution of the wick-
ed, are guided by a wise discretion, even as the surgeon war-
ily considers where he is cutting, while the murderer cares
not where he strikes." You must be sensible, fathers, that
in selecting from the maxims of your authors, I have refrained
from quoting those which would have galled you most, though
I might have done it, and that without sinning against dis-
cretion, as others who were both learned and catholic writers,
have done before me. All who have read your authors know
how far I have spared you in this respect.1 Besides, I have
taken no notice whatever of what might be brought against
individual characters among you ; and I would have been ex-
tremely sorry to have said a word about secret and personal
failings, whatever evidence I might have of them, being per-
euaded that this is the distinguishing property of malice, and
a practice which ought never to be resorted to, unless whera
it is urgently demanded for the good of the Church. It is
obvious, therefore, that in what I have been compelled to ad-
vance against your moral maxims, I have been by no means
wanting in due consideration : and that you have more reason
to congratulate yourself on my moderation than to complain,
of my indiscretion.

The third rule, fathers, is : That when there is need to
employ a little raillery, the spirit of piety will take care to
employ it against error only, and not against things holy ;

1 " So tar," says Nicole, " from his having told all that he might against
the Jesuits, he has spared them on points so essential and important, that
ill who have a complete knowledge of their maxims have admired his
Moderation." " What would have been the case," asks another writer,
' had Pascal exposed the late infamous things put out by their miserable
lasuists, and unfolded the chain and succession of their regicide authors?"
(Dissertation sur lafoi due au Pascal, &c., p. 14.)

314 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

whereas the spirit of buffoonery, impiety, and heresy, mocks
at all that is most sacred. I have already vindicated myself
on that score ; and indeed there is no great danger of falling
into that vice so long as I confine my remarks to the opinions
which I have quoted from your authors.

In short, fathers, to abridge these rules, I shall only men-
tion another, which is the essence and the end of all the rest :
That the spirit of charity prompts us to cherish in the heart
a desire for the salvation of those against whom we dispute,
and to address our prayers to God while we direct our accu-
sations to men. "We ought ever," says St. Augustine, "to
preserve charity in the heart, even while we are obliged to
pursue a line of external conduct which to man has the ap-
pearance of harshness ; we ought to smite them with a sharp-
ness, severe but kindly, remembering that their advantage is
more to be studied than their gratification." I am sure, fa-
thers, that there is nothing in my letters, from which it can
be inferred that I have not cherished such a desire towards
you ; and as you can find nothing to the contrary in them,
charity obliges you to believe that I have been really actuated
by it. It appears, then, that you cannot prove that I have
offended against this rule, or against any of the other rules
which charity inculcates ; and you have no right to say,
therefore, that I have violated it.

But, fathers, if you should now like to have the pleasure
of seeing, within a short compass, a course of conduct directly
at variance with each of these rules, and bearing the genuine
stamp of the spirit of buffoonery, envy, ",nd hatred, I shall
give you a few examples of it ; and that tLey may be of the
sort best known and most familiar to you, I shall extract
them from your own writings.

To begin, then, with the unworthy manner in which your
authors speak of holy things, whether in their sportive and
gallant effusions, or in their more serious pieces, do you think
that the parcel of ridiculous stories, which your father Binet
Has introduced into his "Consolation to the Sick," are
exactly suitable to his professed object, which is that of im-

GENUINE PROFANENEbS 315

parting Christian consolation to those whom God has chast-
ened with affliction ? Will you pretend to say, that the
profane, foppish style in which your Father Le Moine has
talked of piety in his ' Devotion made Easy,'' is more fitted
to inspire respect than contempt for the picture that he draws
of Christian virtue ? What else does his whole book of
" Moral Pictures" breathe, both in its prose and poetry, but
a spirit full of vanity, and the follies of this world ? Take,
for example, that ode in his seventh book, entitled, "Eulogy
on Bashfulness, showing that all beautiful things are red, or
inclined to redden." Call you that a production worthy of
a priest ? The ode is intended to comfort a lady, called
Delphina, who was sadly addicted to blushing. Each stanza
is devoted to show that certain red things are the best of
things, such as roses, pomegranates, the mouth, the tongue ;
and it is in the midst of this badinage, so disgraceful in a
clergyman, that he has the effrontery to introduce those
blessed spirits that minister before God, and of whom no
Christian should speak without reverence : —

" The cherubim — those glorious choirs —

Composed of head and plumes,
Whom God with his own Spirit inspires,

And with his eyes illumes.
These splendid faces, as they fly,
Are ever red and burning high,
With fire angelic or divine ;
And while their mutual Humes combine
The waving of their wings supplies
A fan to cool their extacies !
But redness shines with better grace,
Delphina, on thy beauteous face,
Where modesty sits revelling —
Arrayed in purple, like a king," &c.

^hat think you of this, fathers ? Does this preference
>i L^e blushes of Delphina to the ardor of those spirits, which
s neither more nor less than the ardor of divine love, and
this simile of the fan applied to their mysterious wings,
strike you as being very Christian-like in the lips which con-

316 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

secrate the adorable body of Jesus Christ ? I am quite
aware that he speaks only in the character of a gallant, and
to raise a smile ; but this is precisely what is called laughing
at things holy. And is it not certain, that, were he to get
full justice, he could not save himself from incurring a cen-
sure ? although, to shield himself from this, he pleads an
excuse which is hardly less censurable than the offence,
"that the Sorbonne has no jurisdiction over Parnassus, and
that the errors of that land are subject neither to censure nor
the Inquisition ;" — as if one could act the blasphemer and
profane fellow only in prose ! There is another passage,
however, in the preface, where even this excuse fails hit:;,
when he says, " that the water of the river, on whose banks
he composes his verses, is so apt to make poets, that, though
it were converted into holy water, it would not chase away
the demon of poesy." To match this, I may add the follow-
ing flight of your Father Garasse, in his " Summary of the
Capital Truths in Religion," where, speaking of the sacre \
mystery of the incarnation, he mixes up blasphemy and her-
esy in this fashion : " The human personality was grafted, as
it were, or set on horseback, upon the personality of the
Word !'" And omitting many others, I might mention an-
other passage from the same author, who, speaking on the
subject of the name of Jesus, ordinarily written thus, j. H. s.
observes that " some have taken away the cross from the
tcp of it, leaving the characters barely thus, I. H. S. — which,"
says he, "is a stripped Jesus !"

Such is the indecency with which you treat the truths of
religion, in the face of the inviolable law which binds us al-
ways to speak of them with reverence. But you have sinned
no less flagrantly against the rule which obliges us to speak
of them with truth and discretion. What is more common

1 The apologists of the Jesuits attempted to justify this extraordinary
'Hustration, by referring to the use which Augustine and other fathers
make of the parable of the good Samaritan who" set on his own beast'
the wounded traveller. But Nicole has shown that fanciful as these
indent interpreters oftenwere.it is doing them injustice to. father on

-m the absurdity of Father Garasse. (Nicole's Notes iii. 340.)

CALUMNY. 311

in your writings than calumny ? Can those of Father Bri-
sacier1 be called sincere ? Does he speak with truth when
he says, that " the nuns of Port-Royal do not pray to the
saints, and have no images in their church ?" Are not these
most outrageous falsehoods, when the contrary appears before
the eyes of all Paris ? And can he be said to speak with
discretion, when he stabs the fair reputation of these virgins,
who lead a life so pure and austere, representing them as
" impenitent, unsacramentalists, uncommunicants, foolish vir-
gins, visionaries, Calagans, desperate creatures, and anything
you please," loading them with many other slanders, which
have justly incurred the censure of the late Archbishop of
Paris ? or when he calumniates priests of the most irreproach-
able morals,2 by asserting " that they practise novelties in
confession, to entrap handsome innocent females, and that he
would be horrified to tell the abominable crimes which they
commit." Is it not a piece of intolerable assurance, to ad-
vance slanders so black and base, not merely without proof,
but without the slightest shadow, or the most distant sem-
blance of truth ? I shall not enlarge on this topic, but defer
it to a future occasion, for I have something more to say to
you about it ; but what I have now produced is enough to
show that you have sinned at once against truth and dis-
cretion.

But it may be said, perhaps, that you have not offended
against the last rule at least, which binds you to desire the
salvation ^f those whom you denounce, and that none can
charge you with this, except by unlocking the secrets of
your breasts, which are only known to God. It is strange,
fathers, but true, nevertheless, that we can convict you even
of this offence ; that while your hatred to your opponents
has carried you so far as to wish their eternal perdition, your

1 Brisaeier, who became rector of the College of Rouen, was a bitter
inamy of the Port- Royalists. His defamatory libel against the nuns of
Port-Royal, entitled, " Le Jansenisme Confondu," published in 1651, was
censured by the Archbishop of Paris, and vigorously assailed by M. Ar-
ikuld-

a The priests of Port-Royal.

318 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

infatuation has driven you to discover the abominable wish
that so far from cherishing in secret desires for their salva-
tion, you have offered up prayers in public for their damna-
tion ; and that, after having given utterance to that hideous
vow in the city of Caen, to the scandal of the whole Church,
you have since then ventured, in Paris, to vindicate, in your
printed books, the diabolical transaction. After such gros*
offences against piety, first ridiculing and speaking lightly of
things the most sacred ; next falsely and scandalously ca-
lumniating priests and virgins ; and lastly, forming desires
and prayers for their damnation, it would be difficult to add
anything worse. I cannot conceive, fathers, how you can
fail to be ashamed of yourselves, or how you could have
thought for an instant of charging me with a want of charity,
who have acted all along with so much truth and moderation,
without reflecting on your own horrid violations of charity,
manifested in those deplorable exhibitions, which make the
charge recoil against yourselves.

In fine, fathers, to conclude with another charge which you
bring against me, I see you complain that among the vast
number of your maxims which I quote, there are some which
have been objected to already, and that I " say over anrain,
what others have said before me." To this I reply, that it is
just because you have not profited by what has been said be-
fore, that I say it over again. Tell me now what fruit has
appeared from all the castigations y^u have received in all
the books written by learned docturs, and even the whole
university ? What more have your fathers Annat, Caussin
Pintereau, and Le Moine done, in the replies they have put
forth, except loading with reproaches those who had given
them salutary admonitions t Have you suppressed the books
in which these nefarious maxims are taught?1 Have you

1 This is the real question, which brings the matter to a point, and
serves to answer all the evasions of the Jesuits. They boast of their
unity as a society, and their blind obedience to their head. Have they,
Ihen. ever, as a society disclaimed these maxims ? — have they even, at
tuck, condemned the sentiments of their fathers Becan. Mariana, and
Hhers. on the duty of dethroning and assassinating herttical kings

PERTINACITY OF THE JESUITS. 819

restrained the authors of these maxims ? Have you become
more circumspect in regard to them ? On the contrary, is
it not the fact, that since that time Escobar has been repeat-
edly reprinted in France and in the Low Countries, and that
your fathers Cellot, Bagot, Bauny, Lamy, Le Moine, and
others, persist in publishing daily the same maxims over
again, or new ones as licentious as ever ? Let us hear no
more complaints, then, fathers, either because I have charged
you with maxims which you have not disavowed, or because
I have objected to some new ones against you, or because I
have laughed equally at them all. You have only to sit down
and look at them, to see at once your own confusion and my
defence. Who can look without laughing at the decision of
Bauny, respecting the person who employs another to set
fire to his neighbor's barn ; that of Cellot on restitution ; the
rule of Sanchez in favor of sorcerers ; the plan of Hurtado
for avoiding the sin of duelling by taking a walk through a
field, and waiting for a man ; the compliments of Bauny for
escaping usury ; the way of avoiding simony by a detour of
the intention, and keeping clear of falsehood by speaking high
and low ; and such other opinions of your most grave and
reverend doctors ? Is there anything more necessary, fathers,
for my vindication ? and as Tertullian says, " can anything
be more justly due to the vanity and weakness of these opin-
ions than laughter ? " But, fathers, the corruption of man-
ners to which your maxims lead, deserves another sort of
consideration ; and it becomes us to ask, with the same an-
cient writer, " Whether ought we to laugh at their folly, or
deplore their blindness ? — Rideam vanitatem, an exprobrem
ccecitatem ? " My humble opinion is, that one may either
laugh at them or weep over them, as one is in the humor.
ffcec tolerabilius vel ridentur, vel flentitr, as St. Augustine
says. The Scripture tells us that " there is a time to laugh,
and a time to weep ; " and my hope is, fathers, that I may
not find verified, in your case, these words in the Proverbs :

Thej- have not; and till this is done, they must be held, as Jesuits, respon-
lible for the sentiments which they refuse to disavow.

320 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

" If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he
rage or laugh, there is no rest."1

P. S. — On finishing this letter, theie was put in my hands
one of your publications, in which you accuse me of falsifica-
tion, in the case of six of your maxims quoted by me, and
also with being in correspondence with heretics. You will
shortly receive, I trust, a suitable reply ; after which, fathers,
I rather think you will not feel very anxious to continue this
species of warfare.1

1 Prov. nix. 9.

* This postscript, which appeared in the earlier editions, it dropl in
that of Nicole and others.

LETTER XII.

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS.

REFUTATION OF THEIE CHICANERIES REGARDING ALMS-GIVING AMI
SIMONY.

September 9, 1656.

REVEREND FATHERS, — I was prepared to write you on the
subject of the abuse with which you have for some time past
been assailing me in your publications, in which you salute
me with such epithets as " reprobate," " buffoon," " block-
head," "merry-Andrew," "impostor," "slanderer," "cheat,"
" heretic," " Calvinist in disguise," " disciple of Du Moulin,'"
" possessed with a legion of devils," and everything else you
can think of. As I should be sorry to have all this believed
of me, I was anxious to show the public why you treated me
in this manner ; and I had resolved to complain of your cal-
umnies and falsifications, when I met with your Answers, in
which you bring these same charges against myself. This
will compel me to alter my plan ; though it will not prevent
me from prosecuting it in some sort, for I hope, while de-
fending myself, to convict you of impostures more genuine
than the imaginary ones which you have ascribed to me.
Indeed, fathers, the suspicion of foul play is much more sure
to rest on you than on me. It is not very likely, standing

1 Pierre du Moulin is termed by Bayle •' one of the most celebrated
ministers which the Reformed Church in France ever had to boast of."
He was born in 1 568, and was for some time settled in Paris ; but having
incurred the resentment of Louis XIII., he retired to Sedan in 1623,
where he became a professor in the Protestant University, and died, in
the ninetieth year of his age, in 1658. two years after the time when
Dascal wrote. Of his numerous writings, few are known in this coun-
try, excepting his " Buckler of the Faith." and his <; Anatomy of the
Mass," which were translated into English. (Quick's Synodicon, ii.,
105.)

14*

322 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

as I do, alone, without power or any human defence, against
such a large body, and having no support but truth and in-
tegrity, that I would expose myself to lose everything, by
laying myself open to be convicted of imposture. It is toe
easy to discover falsifications in matters of fact such as the
present. In such a case there would have been no want of
persons to accuse me, nor would justice have been denied
them. With you, fathers, the case is very different ; you
may say as much as you please against me, while I may look
in vain for any to complain to. With such a wide difference
between our positions, though there had been no other con-
sideration to restrain me, it became me to study no little
caution. By treating me, however, as a common slanderer,
you compel me to assume the defensive, and you must be
aware that this cannot be done without entering into a fresh
exposition, and even into a fuller disclosure of the points of
your morality. In provoking this discussion, I fear you are
not acting as good politicians. The war must be waged
within your own camp, and at your own expense ; and al-
though you imagine that, by embroiling the questions with
scholastic terms, the answers will be so tedious, thorny, and
obscure, that people will lose all relish for the controversy,
this may not, perhaps, turn out to be exactly the case ; I
shall use my best endeavors to tax your patience as little as
possible with that sort of writing. Your maxims have some-
thing diverting about them, which keeps up the good humor
of people to the last. At all events, remember that it is
you that oblige me to enter upon this eclair -cissement, and let
us see which of us comes off best in self-defence.

The first of your Impostures, as you call them, is on the
opinion of Vasquez upon alms-giving. To avoid all ambigu-
ity, then, allow me to give a simple explanation of the matter
in dispute. It is well known, fathers, that according to the
mind of the Church, there are two precepts touching alms —
1st, "To give out of our superfluity in the case of the ordi
nary necessities of the poor ;" and Idly, " To give even out
of our necessaries, according to our circumstances, in cases

ALMS-GIVING. 828

of extreme necessity." Thus says Cajetan, after St. Thomas
BO that, to get at the mind of Vasquez on this subject, wa
must consider the rules he lays down, both in regard to ne-
cessaries and superfluities.

With regard to superfluity, which is the most common
source of relief to the poor, it is entirely set aside by that
single maxim which I have quoted in my Letters : " That
what the men of the world keep with the view of improving
their own condition and that of their relatives, is not properly
superfluity ; so that, such a thing as superfluity is rarely to
be met with among men of the world, not even excepting
kings." It is very easy to see, fathers, that according to
this definition, none can have superfluity, provided they have
ambition ; and thus, so far as the greater part of the world
is concerned, alms-giving is annihilated. But even though a
man should happen to have superfluity, he would be under
no obligation, according to Vasquez, to give it away in the
case of ordinary necessity ; for he protests against those who
would thus bind the rich. Here are his own words : " Cor-
duba," says he, " teaches, that when we have a superfluity
we are bound to give out of it in cases of ordinary necessity ;
but this does not please me — sed hoc non placet — for we have
demonstrated the contrary against Cajetan and Navarre."
So. fathers, the obligation to this kind of alms is wholly set
aside, according to the good pleasure of Vasquez.

With regard to necessaries, out of which we are bound to
give in cases of extreme and urgent necessity, it must be ob-
vious, from the conditions by which he has limited the obli-
gation, that the richest man in all Paris may not come within
its reach once in a lifetime. I shall only refer to two of
these. The first is, That " we must know that the poor man
cannot be relieved from any other quarter — hcec intettigo et
ceetera omnia, quando scio nullum alium opem laturum."
What say you to this, fathers ? Is it likely to happen fre-
quently in Paris, where there are so many charitable people,
that I must know that there is not another soul but myself
to relieve the poor wretch who begs an alms from me ? A ad

124 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

yet, according to Vasquez, if I have not ascertained that fact.
I may send him away with nothing. The second condition
is. That the poor man be reduced to such straits " that he is
menaced with some fatal accident, or the ruin of his charac-
ter"— none of them very common occurrences. But what
marks still more the rarity of the cases in which one is bound
to give charity, is his remark, in another passage, that the
poor man must be so ill off, " that he may conscientiously rob
the rich man !" This must surely be a very extraordinary
case, unless he will insist that a man may be ordinarily al-
lowed to commit robbery. And so, after having cancelled
the obligation to give alms out of our superfluities, he obliges
the rich to relieve the poor only in those cases when he
would allow the poor to rifle the rich ! Such is the doc-
trine of Vasquez, to whom you refer your readers for their
edification !

I now come to your pretended Impostures. You begin
by enlarging on the obligation to alms-giving which Vasquea
imposes on ecclesiastics. But on this point I have said noth-
ing ; and I am prepared to take it up whenever you choose.
This, then, has nothing to do with the present question. As
for laymen, who are the only persons with whom we have
now to do, you are apparently anxious to have it understood
that, in the passage which I quoted, Vasquez is giving not
his own judgment, but that of Cajetan. But as nothing
could be more false than this, and as you have not said it in
BO many terms, I am willing to believe, for the sake of your
character, that you did not intend to say it.

You next loudly complain that, after quoting that maxim
of Vasquez, " Such a thing as superfluity is rarely if ever
to be met with among men of the world, not excepting
kings," I have inferred from it, " that the rich are rarely, if
ever, bound to give alms out of their superfluity." But
what do you mean to say, fathers ? If it be true that the
rich have almost never superfluity, is it not obvious that they
will almost never be bound to give alms out of their super-
fluity ? I might have put it into the form of a syllogism fo«

ALMS-GIVING. 526

you, if Diana, who has such an esteem for Vasquez that he
calls him " the phoenix of genius," had not drawn the same
conclusion from the same premises ; for, after quoting the
maxim of Vasquez, he concludes, " that, with regard to the
question, whether the rich are obliged to give alms out of
their superfluity, though the affirmation were true, it would
seldom, or almost never, happen to be obligatory in pratice."
I have followed this language word for word. What, then,
are we to make of this, fathers ? When Diana quotes with
approbation the sentiments of Vasquez — when he finds them
probable, and " very convenient for rich people," as he says
in the same place, he is no slanderer, no falsifier, and we
hear no complaints of misrepresenting his author ; whereas,
when I cite the same sentiments of Vasquez, though without
holding him up as a phoenix, I am a slanderer, a fabricator,
a corrupter of his maxims. Truly, fathers, you have some
reason to be apprehensive, lest your very different treatment
of those who agree in their representation, and differ only in
their estimate of your doctrine, discover the real secret cf
your hearts, and provoke the conclusion, that the main ob
ject you have in view is to maintain the credit and glory of
your Company. It appears that, provided your accommo-
dating theology is treated as judicious complaisance, you
never disavow those that publish it, but laud them as con-
tributing to your design ; but let it be held forth as pernicious
laxity, and the same interest of your Society prompts you to
disclaim the maxims which would injure you in public esti-
mation. And thus you recognize or renounce them, not
according to the truth, which never changes, but according
to the shifting exigencies of the times, acting on that motto
of one of the ancients, " Omnia pro tempore, nikil pro veri'
tate — Anything for the times, nothing for the truth." Be-
ware of this, fathers ; and that you may never have it in
your power again to say that I drew from the principle of
Vasquez a conclusion which he had disavowed, I beg to in-
form you that he has drawn it himself: "According to the
opinion of Cajetan, and according to MY OWN — et secundum

326 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

nostram — (he says, chap, i., no. 27), one is hardly obliged to
give alms at all, when one is only obliged to give them out
of one's superfluity." Confess then, fathers, on the testi-
mony of Vasquez himself, that I have exactly copied hia
sentiment ; and think how you could have the conscience to
say, that " the reader, on consulting the original, would see
to his astonishment, that he there teaches the very reverse !"

In fine, you insist, above all, that if Vasquez does not bind
the rich to give alms out of their superfluity, he obliges them
to atone for this by giving out of the necessaries of life.
But you have forgotten to mention the list of conditions
which he declares to be essential to constitute that obligation,
which I have quoted, and which restrict it in such a way as
almost entirely to annihilate it. In place of giving this hon-
est statement of his doctrine, you tell us, in general terms,
that he obliges the rich to give even what is necessary to
their condition. This is proving too much, fathers ; the rule
of the Gospel does not go so far ; and it would be an error,
into which Vasquez is very far, indeed, from having fallen.
To cover his laxity, you attribute to him an excess of severity
which would be reprehensible ; and thus you lose all credit
as faithful reporters of his sentiments. But the truth is,
Vasquez is quite free from any such suspicion ; for he has
maintained, as I have shown, that the rich are not bound,
either in justice or in charity, to give of their superfluities,
and still less of their necessaries, to relieve the ordinary wants
of the poor ; and that they are not obliged to give of the neces-
saries, except in cases so rare that they almost never happen.

Having disposed of your objections against me on this
head, it only remains to show the falsehood of your assertion,
that Vasquez is more severe than Cajetan. This will be very
easily done. That cardinal teaches " that we are bound in
justice to give alms out of our superfluity, even in the or-
dinary wants of the poor ; because, according to the holy
fathers, the rich are merely the dispensers of their superflu-
ity, which they are to give to whom they please, among
those who have need of it." And accordingly, unlike Diana,

ALMS -GIVING. 327

who says of the maxims of Vasquez, that they will be " very
convenient and agreeable to the rich and their confessors,"
the cardinal, who has no such consolation to afford them, de-
clares that he has nothing to say to the rich but these words
of Jesus Christ : "It is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into heaven ;"
and to their confessors : " If the blind lead the blind, both
shall fall into the ditch."1 So indispensable did he deem
this obligation ! This, too, is what the fathers and all the
saints have laid down as a certain truth. " There are two
cases," says St. Thomas, " in which we are bound to give
alms as a matter of justice — ex debito legali : one, when the
poor are in danger ; the other, when we possess superfluous
property." And again : " The three tenths which the Jews
were bound to eat with the poor, have been augmented under
the new law ; for Jesus Christ wills that we give to the poor,
not the tenth only, but the whole of our superfluity." And
yet it does not seem good to Vasquez that we should be
obliged to give even a fragment of our superfluity ; such is
his complaisance to the rich, such his hardness to the poor,
such his opposition to those feelings of charity which teach
us to relish the truth contained in the following words of
St. Gregory, harsh as it may sound to the rich of this world :
" When we give the poor what is necessary to them, we are
not so much bestowing on them what is our property, as
rendering to them what is their own ; and it may be said ti'
be an act of justice, rather than a work of mercy."

It is thus that the saints recommend the rich to share with
the poor the good things of this earth, if they would expect
to possess with them the good things of heaven. While
TOU make it your business to foster in the breasts of men
that ambition which leaves no superfluity to dispose of, and
that avarice which refuses to part with it, the saints have la-
oored to induce the rich to give up their superfluity, and to
tonvince them that they would have abundance of it, pro-
rided they measured it, not by the standard of covotous-

1 De Eleemoayna, c. 6.

328 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

ness, which knows no bounds to its cravings, but by that of
piety, which is ingenious in retrenchments, so as to have
wherewith to diffuse itself in the exercise of charity. " We
will have a great deal of superfluity," says St. Augustine, " if
we keep only what is necessary : but if we seek after vanities,
we will never have enough. Seek, brethren, what is suffi-
cient for the work of God" — that is, for nature — " and not
for what is sufficient for your covetousness," which is the
work of the devil : " and remember that the superfluities of
the rich are the necessaries of the poor."

I would fondly trust, fathers, that what I have now said
to you may serve, not only for my vindication — that were a
small matter — but also to make you feel and detest what is
corrupt in the maxims of your casuists, and thus unite us
sincerely under the sacred rules of the Gospel, according to
which we must all be judged.

As to the second point, which regards simony, before pro-
ceeding to answer the charges you have advanced against
me, I shall begin by illustrating your doctrine on this sub-
ject. Finding yourselves placed in an awkward dilemma,
between the canons of the Church, which impose dreadful
penalties upon simoniacs, on the one hand, and the avarice
of many who pursue this infamous traffic on the other, you
have recourse to your ordinary method, which is to yield to
men what they desire, and give the Almighty only words
fend shows. For what else does the simoniac want, but
money, in return for his benefice ? And yet this is what you
exempt from the charge of simony. And as the name of
simony must still remain standing, and a subject to which it
may be ascribed, you have substituted, in the place of this,
an imaginary idea, which never yet crossed the brain of a
simoniac, and would not serve him much though it did — the
idea, namely, that simony lies in estimating the money con.
sidered in itself as highly as the spiritual gift or < ffice con-
sidered in itself. Who would ever take it into his head to
Compare things so utterly disproportionate and heterogeneous ?
A.nd yet, provided this metaphysical comparison be not

SIMONY. 329

drawn, any one may, according to your authors, give away
a benefice, and receive money in return for it, without being
guilty of simony.

Such is the way in which you sport with religion, in order
to gratify the worst passions of men ; and yet only see with
what gravity your Father Valentia delivers his rhapsodies in
the passage cited in my letters. He says : " One may give
a spiritual for a temporal good in two ways — first, in the way
of prizing the temporal more than the spiritual, and that
would be simony ; secondly, in the way of taking the tem-
poral as the motive and end inducing one to give away the
spiritual, but without prizing the temporal more than the
spiritual, and then it is not simony. And the reason is, that
simony consists in receiving something temporal, as the just
price of what is spiritual. If, therefore, the temporal is
sought — si petatur temporale — not as the price, but only as
the motive, determining us to part with the spiritual, it is by
no means simony, even although the possession of the tem-
poral may be principally intended and expected — minime erit
simonia, etiamsi temporale principaliter intendatur et expecte-
tur." Your redoubtable Sanchez has been favored with a
similar revelation ; Escobar quotes him thus : " If one give a
spiritual for a temporal good, not as the price, but as a mo-
tive to induce the collator to give it, or as an acknowledgment
if the benefice has been actually received, is that simony ?
Sanchez assures us that it is not." In your Caen Theses of
1644, you say: "It is a probable opinion, taught by many
Catholics, that it is not simony to exchange a temporal for a
spiritual good, when the former is not given as a price." And
us to Tanner, here is his doctrine, exactly the same with that
of Valentia ; and I quote it again to show you how far wrong
it is in you to complain of me for saving that it does not
agree with that of St. Thomas, for he avows it himself in the
very passage which I quoted in my letter : " There is prop-
erly and truly no simony," says he, " unless when a temporal
good is taken as the price or a spiritual ; but when taken
merely as the motive for giving the spiritual, or as an ac-

330 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Knowledgment for having received it, this is not simony, at
least in point of conscience." And again: " The same thing
may be said although the temporal should be regarded as the
principal end, and even preferred to the spiritual ; although
St. Thomas and others appear to hold the reverse, inasmuch
as they maintain it to be downright simony to exchange a
spiritual for a temporal good, when the temporal is the end
of the transaction."

Such, then, being your doctrine on simony, as taught b}
your best authors, who follow each other very closely in this
point, it only remains now to reply to your charges of mis-
representation. You have taken no notice of Valentia's opin-
ion, so that his doctrine stands as it was before. But you fix
on that of Tanner, maintaining that he has merely decided it
to be no simony by divine right ; and you would have it to
be believed that, in quoting the passage, I have suppressed
these words, divine right. This, fathers, is a most uncon-
scionable trick ; for these words, divine right, never existed
in that passage. You add that Tanner declares it to be
simony according to positive right. But you are mistaken ;
he does not say that generally, but only of particular cases,
or, as he expresses it, in casibus a jure erpressis, by which he
makes an exception to the general rule he had laid down in
that passage, "that it is not simony in point of conscience,"
which must imply that it is not so in point of positive right,
unless you would have Tanner made so impious as to main-
tain that simony, in point of positive right, is not simony in
point of conscience. But it is easy to see your drift in mus-
tering up such terms as " divine right, positive right, natural
light, internal and external tribunal, expressed cases, outward
presumption," and others equally little known ; you mean to
escape under this obscurity of language, and make us lose
eight of your aberrations. But, fathers, you shall not escape
by these vain artifices ; for I shall put some questions to you
eo simple, that they will not admit of coming under your dis-
inguo.1

1 See before, page 151.

SIMONT. 33 \

I ask you, llien, without speaking of "positive rights," of
"outward presumptions," or "external tribunals" — I ask if,
according to your authors, a beneficiary would be simoniacal,
were he to give a benefice worth four thousand livres of yearly
rent, and to receive ten thousand francs ready money, not as
the price of the benefice, but merely as a motive inducing
him to give it ? Answer me plainly, fathers : What must we
make of such a case as this according to your authors ? Will
not Tanner tell us decidedly that " this is not simony in point
of conscience, seeing that the temporal good is not the price
of the benefice, but only the motive inducing to dispose of
it ?" Will not Valentia, will not your own Theses of Caen,
will not Sanchez and Escobar agree in the same decision, and
give the same reason for it ? Is anything more necessary to
exculpate that beneficiary from simony ? And, whatever
might be your private opinion of the case, durst you deal
with that man as a simonist in your confessionals, when he
would be entitled to stop your mouth by telling you that he
acted according to the advice of so many grave doctors ?
Confess candidly, then, that, according to your views, that
man would be no simonist ; and, having done so, defend the
doctrine as you best can.

Such, fathers, is the true mode of treating questions, in
order to unravel, instead of perplexing them, either by scho-
lastic terms, or, as you have done in your last charge against
me here, by altering the state of the question. Tanner, you
say, has, at any rate, declared that such an exchange is a
great sin ; and you blame me for having maliciously sup-
pressed this circumstance, which, you maintain, " completely
justifies him." But you are wrong again, and that in more
ways than one. For, first, though what you say had been
true, it would be nothing to the point, the question in the
passage to which I referred being, not if it was sin, but if it
was simony. Now, these are two very different questions.
8in, according to your maxims, obliges only to confession —
simony obliges to restitution ; and there are people to whom
Jiese may appear two very different things. You have found

332 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

expedients for making confession a very easy affair ; but you
have not fallen upon ways and means to make restitution an
agreeable one. Allow me to add, that the case which Tan-
ner charges with sin, is not simply that in which a spiritual
good is exchanged for a temporal, the latter being the prin-
cipal end in view, but that in which the party " prizes the
temporal above the spiritual," which is the imaginary case
already spoken of. And it must be allowed he could not go
far wrong in charging such a case as that with sin, since that
man must be either very wicked or very stupid who, when
permitted to exchange the one thing for the other, would not
avoid the sin of the transaction by such a simple process as
that of abstaining from comparing the two things together.
Besides, Valentia, in the place quoted, when treating the
question, if it be sinful to give a spiritual good for a tem-
poral, the latter being the main consideration, and after pro-
ducing the reasons given for the affirmative, adds, " Sed hoc
non videtur mihi satis certum — But this does not appear to
my mind sufficiently certain."

Since that time, however, your father, Erade Bille, pro-
fessor of cases of conscience at Caen, has decided that there
is no sin at all in the case supposed ; for probable opinions,
you know, are always in the way of advancing to maturity.1
This opinion he maintains in his writings of 1G44, against
which M. Dupre, doctor and professor at Caen, delivered that
excellent oration, since printed and well known. For though
this Erade Bille confesses that Valentia's doctrine, adopted
by Father Milliard, and condemned by the Sorbonne, " is
contrary to the common opinion, suspected of simony, and
punishable at law when discovered in practice," he does not
scruple to say that it is a probable opinion, and consequently
sure in point of conscience, and that there is neither simony
nor sin in it. " It is a probable oyinion," he says, " taught
by many Catholic doctors, that there is neither any simony
nor any sin in giving money, or any other temporal thing, for
a benefice, either in the way of acknowledgment, or as a mo-
1 See before, page 218.

SIMONY. 333

live, without which it would not be given, provided it is not
given as a price equal to the benefice." This is all that could
possibly be desired. In fact, according to these maxims of
yours, simony would be so exceedingly rare, that we might
exempt from this sin even Simon Magus himself, who desire'?
to purchase the Holy Spirit, and is the emblem of those simo-
nists that buy spiritual things ; and Gehazi, who took money
for a miracle, and may be regarded as the prototype of the
simonists that sell them. There can be no doubt that when
Simon, as we read in the Acts, " offered the apostles money,
saying, Give me also this power ;" he said nothing about buy-
ing or selling or fixing the price ; he did no more than offer
the money as a motive to induce them to give him that spir-
itual gift ; which being, according to you, no simony at all,
he might, had he but been instructed in your maxims, have
escaped the anathema of St. Peter. The same unhappy ig-
norance was a great loss to Gehazi, when he was struck with
leprosy by Elisha ; for, as he accepted the money from the
prince who had been miraculously cured, simply as an ac-
knowledgment, and not as a price equivalent to the divine
virtue which had effected the miracle, he might have insisted
on the prophet healing him again on pain of mortal sin ; see-
ing, on this supposition, he would have acted according to the
advice of your grave doctors, who, in such cases, oblige con-
fessors to absolve their penitents, and to wash them from that
spiritual leprosy of which the bodily disease is the type.

Seriously, fathers, it would be extremely easy to hold you
ip to ridicule in this matter, and I am at a loss to know why
you expose yourselves to such treatment. To produce thh
effect, I have nothing more to do than simply to quote Esco-
bar, in his " Practice of Simony according to the Society of
Jesus ;" " Is it simony when two Churchmen become mutu-
ally pledged thus : Give me your vote for my election as
provincial, and I shall give you mine for your election as
prior ? By no means." Or take another : " It is not simony
kO get possession of a benefice by promising a sum of money,
idien one has no intention of actually paying the money;

334 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

for this is merely making a show of simony, and is as far
from being real simony as counterfeit gold is from the gen-
uine." By this quirk of conscience, lie has contrived means,
in the way of adding swindling to simony, for obtaining ben-
efices without simony and without money.

But I have no time to dwell longer on the subject, for I
must say a word or two in reply to your third accusation,
which refers to the subject of bankrupts. Nothing can be
more gross than the manner in which you have managed this
charge. You rail at me as a libeller in reference to a senti-
ment of Lessius, which I did not quote myself, but took from
a passage in Escobar ; and therefore, though it were true
that Lessius does not hold the opinion ascribed to him by
Escobar, what can be more unfair than to charge me with
the misrepresentation ? When I quote Lessius or others of
your authors myself, I am quite prepared to answer for it ;
but as Escobar has collected the opinions of twenty-four of
your writers, I beg to ask, if I am bound to guarantee any-
thing beyond the correctness of my citations from his book ?
or if I must, in addition, answer for the fidelity of all his
quotations of which I may avail myself ? This would be
hardly reasonable ; and yet this is precisely the case in the
question before us. I produced in my letter the following
passage from Escobar, and you do not object to the fidelity of
my translation : " May the bankrupt, with a good conscience,
retain as much of his property as is necessary to afford him
an honorable maintenance — ne indecore vivat ? I answer, with
Lessius, that he may — cum Lessio assero posse." You tell
me that Lessius does not hold that opinion. But just con-
sider for a moment the predicament in which you involve
yourselves. If it turns out that he does hold that opinion,
you will be set down as impostors for having asserted the
contrary ; and if it is proved that he does not hold it, Esco-
bar will be the impostor ; so it must now of necessity follow,
lhat one or other of the Society will be convicted of impos-
ture. Only think what a scandal! You cannot, it would
ippear, foresee the consequences of things. You seem to

BANKRUPTCY. 885

Imagine that you have nothing more to do than to cast as-
persions upon people, without considering on whom they
may recoil. Why did you not acquaint Escobar with your
objection before venturing to publish it? He might have
given you satisfaction. It is not so very troublesome to get
word from Valladolid, where he is living in perfect health,
and completing his grand work on Moral Theology, in six
volumes, on the first of which I mean to say a few words by
and-by. They have sent him the first ten letters ; you might
as easily have sent him your objection, and I am sure he
would have soon returned you an answer, for he has doubt-
less seen in Lessius the passage from which he took the ne
indecore vivat. Read him yourselves, fathers, and you will
find it word for word, as I have done. Here it is : '" The
same thing is apparent from the authorities cited, particularly
in regard to that property which he acquires after his failure,
out of which even the delinquent debtor may retain as much
as is necessary for his honorable maintenance, according to
his station of life — tit non indecore vivat. Do you ask if this
rule applies to goods which he possessed at the time of his
failure ? Such seems to be the judgment of the doctors."

I shall not stop here to show how Lessius, to sanction his
maxim, perverts the law that allows bankrupts nothing more
than a mere livelihood, and that makes no provision for " hon-
orable maintenance." It is enough to have vindicated Esco-
bar from such an accusation — it is more, indeed, than what
T was in duty bound to do. But you, fathers, have not done
your duty. It still remains for you to answer the passage
of Escobar, whose decisions, by the way, have this advan-
tage, that being entirely independent of the context, and con-
densed in little articles, they are not liable to your distinc-
tions. I quoted the whole of the passage, in which " bank-
rupts are permitted to keep their goods, though unjustly
acquired, to provide an honorable maintenance for their fam-
ilies"— commenting on which in my letters, I exclaim : " In-
deed, father ! by what strange kind of charity would you
have the ill-gotten property of a bankrupt appropriated to

336 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

his own use, instead of that of his lawful creditors ? J>1 This
is the question which must be answered ; but it is one that
involves you in a sad dilemma, and from which you in vain
seek to escape by altering the state of the question, and
quoting other passages from Lessius, which have no connec-
tion with the subject. I ask you, then, May this maxim of
Escobar be followed by bankrupts with a safe conscience, or
no ? And take care what you say. If you answer, No,
what becomes of your doctor, and your doctrine of proba-
bility ? If you say, Yes — I delate you to the Parliament.1

In this predicament I must now leave you, fathers ; for
my limits will not permit me to overtake your next accusa-
tion, which respects homicide. This will serve for my next
letter, and the rest will follow.

In the mean while, I shall make no remarks on the adver-
tisements which you have tagged to the end of each of your
charges, filled as they are with scandalous falsehoods. I
mean to answer all these in a separate letter, in which I hope
to show the weight due to your calumnies. I am sorry
fathers, that you should have recourse to such desperate re-
sources. The abusive terms which you heap on me will not
clear up our disputes, nor will your manifold threats hinder
me from defending myself. You think you have power and
impunity on your side ; and I think that I have truth and in-
nocence on mine. It is a strange and tedious war, when vio-
lence attempts to vanquish truth. All the efforts of violence
cannot weaken truth, and only serve to give it fresh vigor
All the lights of truth cannot arrest violence, and only serve
to exasperate it. When force meets force, the weaker must
Buccumb to the stronger ; when argument is opposed to ar-
gument, the solid and the convincing triumphs over the
-jmpty and the false ; but violence and verity can make no im-
pression on each other. Let none suppose, however, that
the two are, therefore, equal to each other ; for there is this

i See before, p. 177.

a " The Parliament of Paris was originally the court of the kings of
'ranee, to which they committed the supreme administration of jus-
ace.'1 (Robertson's Charles V.. vol. i. 171.)

VIOLENCE AND VERITY.

337

rast difference between them, that violence has only a certain
course to run, limited by the appointment of Heaven, which
overrules its effects to the glory of the truth which it assails ;
whereas verity endures forever, and eventually triumphs
over its enemies, being eternal and almighty as God him-
self.1

1 In most of the French editions, another letter is inserted after this,
being a refutation of a reply which appeared at the time to Letter xii.
But as this letter, though well written, was not written by Pascal, and
as it does not contain anything that would now be interesting to the
reader, we omit it. Suffice it to say, that the reply of the Jesuits con-
sisted, as usual, of the most barefaced attempts to fix the charge of mis-
representation on their opponent, accusing him of omitting to quote pas-
sages from his authors which they never wrote, of not answering objec-
tions which were never brought against him. of not adverting to cases
which neither he nor his authors dreamt of— in short, like all Jesuitical
answers, it is anything and everything but a refutation of the charges
which have been substantiated against them.

LETTER XIII.

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS OP THE SOCIETY
OP JESUS.

HIS DOCTRINE OF LESSItJS ON HOMICIDE THE SAME WITH THAT
OF VALENTIA — HOW EASY IT IS TO PASS FROM SPECULATION TC
PRACTICE WHY THE JESUITS HAVE RECOURSE TO THIS DIS-
TINCTION, AND HOW LITTLE IT SERVES FOR THEIR VINDICATION.

September 30, 1656.

REVEREND FATHERS, — I have just seen your last produc-
tion, in which you have continued your list of Impostures up
to the twentieth, and intimate that you mean to conclude with
this the first part of your accusations against me, and to pro-
ceed to the second, in which you are to adopt a new mode of
defence, by showing that there are other casuists besides those
of your Society who are as lax as yourselves. I now see the
precise number of charges to which I have to reply ; and as
the fourth, to which we have now come, relates to homicide,
it may be proper, in answering it, to include the llth, 13th,
14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th, which refer to the same
subject.

In the present letter, therefore, my object shall be to vin-
dicate the correctness of my quotations from the charges of
falsity which you bring against me. But as you have ven-
tured, in your pamphlets, to assert that " the sentiments of
your authors on murder are agreeable to the decisions of
popes and ecclesiastical laws," you will compel me, in my
next letter, to confute a statement at once so unfounded and
BO injurious to the Church. It is of some importance to show
that she is innocent of your corruptions, in order that heretics
may be prevented from taking advantage of your aberrations.

FIDELITY OF PASCAL'S QUOTATIONS. 3«'J9

lo draw conclusions tending to her dishonor.1 And thus,
Clewing on the one hand your pernicious maxims, and on the
other the canons of the Church which have uniformly con-
demned them, people will see, at one glance, what they should
shun and what they should follow.

Your fourth charge turns on a maxim relating to murder,
which you say I have falsely ascribed to Lessius. It is as
follows : " That if a man has received a buffet, he may im-
mediately pursue his enemy, and even return the blow with
the sword, not to avenge himself, but to retrieve his honor."
This, you say, is the opinion of the casuist Victoria. But this
is nothing to the point. There is no inconsistency in saying,
that it is at once the opinion of Victoria and of Lessius ; for
Lessius himself says that it is also held by Navarre and Hen-
riquez, who teach identically the same doctrine. The only
question, then, is, if Lessius holds this view as well as his
brother casuists. You maintain " that Lessius quotes this
opinion solely for the purpose of refuting it, and that I there-
fore attribute to him a sentiment which he produces only to
overthrow — the basest and most disgraceful act of which a
writer can be guilty." Now I maintain, fathers, that he
quotes the opinion solely for the purpose of supporting it.
Here is a question of fact, which it will be very easy to settle.
Let ,us see, then, how you prove your allegation, and you will
see afterwards how I prove mine.

To show that Lessius is not of that opinion, you tell ua
that he condemns the practice of it ; and in proof of this,
you quote one passage of his (1. 2, c. 9, n. 92), in which he
says, in so many words, " I condemn the practice of it." I
grant that, on looking for these words, at number 92, to
which you refer, they will be found there. But what wil)
people say, fathers, when they discover, at the same time,
that he is treating in that place of a question totally different

1 The Church of Rome has not left those whom she terms heretics so
Joubtfully to •' take advantage" of Jesuitical aberrations. She has dona
everything in her power to give them this advantage. By identifying
herself, at various times, with the Jesuits, she has virtually stamped
Iheir doctrines with her approbation.

840 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

from that of which we are speaking, and that the opinion of
which he there says that he condemns the practice, has no
connection with that now in dispute, but is quite distinct ?
And yet to be convinced that this is the fact, we have only
to open the book to which you refer, and there we find the
whole subject in its connection as follows : At number 79 he
treats the question, " If it is lawful to kill for a buffet ?" and
it number 80 he finishes this matter without a single word
of condemnation. Having disposed of this question, he opens
a new one at art. 81, namely, " If it is lawful to kill for
slanders ?" and it is when speaking of this question that he
employs the words you have quoted — " I condemn the prac-
tice of it."

Is it not shameful, fathers, that you should venture to pro-
duce these words to make it be believed that Lessius condemns
the opinion that it is lawful to kill for a buffet ? and that, on
the ground of this single proof, you should chuckle over it,
as you have done, by saying : " Many persons of honor in
Paris have already discovered this notorious falsehood by
consulting Lessius, and have thus ascertained the degree of
credit due to that slanderer ?" Indeed ! and is it thus that
you abuse the confidence which those persons of honor re-
pose in you ? To show them that Lessius does not hold a
certain opinion, you open the book to them at a place where
he is condemning another opinion ; and these persons not
having begun to mistrust your good faith, and never thinking
of examining whether the author speaks in that place of the
subject in dispute, you impose on their credulity. I make no
doubt, fathers, that to shelter yourselves from the guilt of
such a scandalous lie, you had recourse to your doctrine of
equivocations ; and that, having read the passage in a loud
voice, you would say, in a lower key, that the author was
speaking there of something else. But I am not so sure
whether this saving clause, which is quite enough to satisfy
your consciences, will be a very satisfactory answer to the
just complaint of those "honorable persons," when they
thall discover that you have hoodwinked them in this style.

FIDELITY OF PASCAl/5 DESCRIPTIONS. 341

Take care, then, fathers, to prevent them by all means
from seeing my letters ; for this is the only method now
left you to preserve your credit for a short time longer. This
is not the way in which I deal with your writings : I send
them to all my friends : I wish everybody to see them. And
I verily believe that both of us are in the right for our own
ixterests ; for after having published with such parade this
fourth Imposture, were it once discovered that you have
made it up by foisting in one passage for another, you would
be instantly denounced. It will be easily seen, that if you
could have found what you wanted in the passage where
Lessius treated of this matter, you would not have searched
for it elsewhere, and that you had recourse to such a trick
only because you could find nothing in that passage favora-
ble to your purpose.

You would have us believe that we may find in Lessius
what you assert, " that he does not allow that this opinion
(that a man may be lawfully killed for a buffet) is probable
in theory ;" whereas Lessius distinctly declares, at number
80 : " This opinion, that a man may kill for a buffet, is prob-
able in theory." Is not this, word for word, the reverse of
your assertion ? And can we sufficiently admire the hardi-
hood with which you have advanced, in set phrase, the very
reverse of a matter of fact ! To your conclusion, from a
labricated passage, that Lessius was not of that opinion, we
have only to place Lessius himself, who, in the genuine pas-
sage, declares that he is of that opinion.

Again, you would have Lessius to say " that he condemns
the practice of it ;" and, as I have just observed, there is
not in the original a single word of condemnation ; all that he
says is : " It appears that it ought not to be EASILY permit-
ted in practice — In praxi non vide'ur FACILE permittenda."
Is that, fathers, the language of a man who condemns a
maxim ? Would you say that adultery and incest ought not
'o be easily permitted in practice ? Must we not, on the con-
trary, conclude, that as Lessius says no more than that the
nractice ought not to be easily permitted, his opinion is, that

3-12 PROVINCIAL BETTERS.

it may be permitted sometimes, though rarely ? And, as if
he had been anxious to apprize everybody when it might be
permitted, and to relieve those who have received affronts
from being troubled with unreasonable scruples, from not
knowing on what occasions they might lawfully kill in prac-
tice, he has been at pains to inform them what they ought to
avoid in order to practise the doctrine with a safe conscience.
Mark his words : " It seems," says he, " that it ought not to
be easily permitted, because of the danger that persons may
act in this matter out of hatred or revenge, or with excess, or
that this may occasion too many murders." From this it
appears that murder is freely permitted by Lessius, if one
avoids the inconveniences referred to — in other words, if one
can act without hatred or revenge, and in circumstances that
may not open the door to a great many murders. To illus-
trate the matter, I may give you an example of recent occur-
rence— the case of the buffet of Compiegne.1 You will grant
that the person who received the blow on that occasion has
shown by the way in which he has acted, that he was suf-
ficiently master of the passions of hatred and revenge. It
only remained for him, therefore, to see that he did not give
occasion to too many murders ; and you need hardly be told,
fathers, it is such a rare spectacle to find Jesuits bestowing
buffets on the officers of the royal household, that he had no
great reason to fear that a murder committed on this occa-
sion would be likely to draw many others in its train. You
cannot, accordingly, deny that the Jesuit who figured on
that occasion was killable with a safe conscience, and that the
offended party might have converted him into a practical
illustration of the doctrine of Lessius. And very likely, fa-
thers, this might have been the result had he been educated
in your school, and learnt from Escobar that the man who

1 The reference here is to an affray which made a considerable noise
at the time, between Father Borin, a Jesuit, and M. Guille. one of the
officers of the royal kitchen, in the College of Compiegne. A quarrel
.laving taken place, the enraged Jesuit struck the royal cook in the face
-vhilelie was in the act of preparing dinner, by his majesty's order, for
Christina, queen of Sweden, in honor, perhaps, of her conversion t«
the Romish faith. (Nicole, iv. 37 )

SPECULATIVE MURDER. 343

has received a buffet is held to be disgraced until he has
taken the life of him who insulted him. But there is ground
to believe, that the very different instructions which he re
ceived from a curate, who is no great favorite of yours, have
contributed not a little iu this case to save the life of a Jes-
uit.

Tell us no more, then, of inconveniences which may, in
many instances, be so easily got over, and in the absence of
which, according to Lessius, murder is permissible even in
practice. This is frankly avowed by your authors, as quoted
by Escobar, in his " Practice of Homicide, according to your
Society." " Is it allowable," asks this casuist, " to kill him
who has given m3 a buffet ? Lessius says it is permissible in
speculation, though not to be followed in practice — non con-
sulendum in praxi — on account of the risk of hatred, or of
murders prejudicial to the State. Others, however, have
judged that, BY AVOIDING THESE INCONVENIENCES, THIS is
PERMISSIBLE AND SAFE IN PRACTICE — in praxi probobilem et
tutam judicarunt Henriquez," &c. See how your opinions
mount up, by little and little, to the climax of probabilism !
The present one you have at last elevated to this position, by
permitting murder without any distinction between specula-
tion and practice, in the following terms : " It is lawful, when
one has received a buffet, to return the blow immediately
with the sword, not to avenge one's self, but to preserve one's
honor." Such is the decision of your fathers of Caen in
1644, embodied in their publications produced by the uni-
versity before parliament, when they presented their third
remonstrance against your doctrine of homicide, as shown in
the book then emitted by them, at page 339.

Mark, then, fathers, that your own authors have themselves
demolished this absurd distinction between speculative and
practical murder — a distinction which the university treated
with ridicule, and the invention of which is a secret of your
policy, which it may now be worth while to explain. The
knowledge of it, besides being necessary to the right under-
Itanding of your 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th charges, is well

344 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

calculated, in general, to open up, by little and little, the
principles of that mysterious policy.

In attempting, as you have done, to decide cases of con-
science in the most agreeable and accommodating manner,
while you met with some questions in which religion alone
was concerned — such as those of contrition, penance, love to
God, and others only affecting the inner court of conscience
— you encountered another class of cases in which civil so-
ciety was interested as well as religion — such as those relating
to usury, bankruptcy, homicide, and the like. And it is
truly distressing to all that love the Church, to observe that,
in a vast number of instances, in which you had only Religion
to contend with, you have violated her laws without reserva-
tion, without distinction, and without compunction ; because
you knew that it is not here that God visibly administers his
justice. But in those cases in which the State is interested
as well as Religion, your apprehension of man's justice has
induced you to divide your decisions into two shares. To
the first of these you give the name of speculation ; under
which category crimes, considered in themselves, without re-
gard to society, but mereyy to the law of God, you have
permitted, without the least scruple, and in the way of tram-
pling on the divine law which condemns them. The second
you rank under the denomination of practice ; and here, con-
sidering the injury which may be done to society, and the
presence of magistrates who look after the public peace, you
take care, in order to keep yourselves on the safe side of the
law, not to approve always in practice the murders and other
crimes which you have sanctioned in speculation. Thus, for
example, on the question, " If it be lawful to kill for slan-
ders ?" your authors, Filiutius, Reginald, and others, reply :
" This is permitted in speculation — ex probabile opinione licet ;
but is not to be approved in practice, on account of the great
number of murders which might ensue, and which mio-ht
injure the State, if all slanderers were to be killed, and also
because one might be punished in a court of justice for having
Trilled another for that matter." Such is the style in which

SPECULATIVE MURDER. 345

your opinions begin to develop themselves, under the shelter
of this distinction, in virtue of which, without doing any
sensible injury to society, you only ruin religion. In acting
thus, you consider yourselves quite safe. You suppose that,
on the one hand, the influence you have in the Church will
effectually shield from punishment your assaults on truth ;
and that, on the other, the precautions you have taken against
too easily reducing your permissions to practice will save you
on the part of the civil powers, who, not being judges in
cases of conscience, are properly concerned only with the
outward practice. Thus an opinion which would be con-
demned under the name of practice, comes out quite safe
under the name of speculation. But this basis once estab-
lished, it is not difficult to erect on it the rest of your max-
ims. There is an infinite distance between God's prohibition
of murder, and your speculative permission of the crime ; but
between that permission and the practice the distance is very
small indeed. It only remains to show, that what is allowa-
ble in speculation is also so in practice ; and there can be no
want of reasons for this. You have contrived to find them
in far more difficult cases. Would you h'ke to see, fathers,
how this may be managed ? I refer you to the reasoning of
Escobar, who has distinctly decided the point in the first of
the six volumes of his grand Moral Theology, of which I have
Already spoken — a work in which he shows quite another
bpirit from that which appears in his former compilation from
your four-and-twenty elders. At that time he thought that
there might be opinions probable in speculation, which might
not be safe in practice ; but he has now come to form an op-
posite judgment, and has, in this, his latest work, confirmed
it. Such is the wonderful growth attained by the doctrine
of probability in general, as well as by every probable opinion
in particular, in the course of time. Attend, then, to what
he says : " I cannot see how it can be that an action which
seems allowable in speculation should not be so likewise in
practice ; because what may be done in practice depends on
what is found to be lawful in speculation, and the things

15*

346 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

differ from each other only as cause and effect. Speculation
is that which determines to action. WHENCE rr FOLLOWS

THAT OPINIONS PROBABLE IN SPECULATION MAY BE FOLLOWED

WITH A SAFE CONSCIENCE IN PRACTICE, and that even with
more safety than those which have not been so well examined
as matters of speculation."1

Verily, fathers, your friend Escobar reasons uncommonly
well sometimes ; and, in point of fact, there is such a close
connection between speculation and practice, that when the
former has once taken root, you have no difficulty in per-
mitting the latter, without any disguise. A good illustration
of this we have in the permission " to kill for a buffet," which,
from being a point of simple speculation, was boldly raised
by Lessius into a practice "which ought not easily to be al-
lowed ;" from that promoted by Escobar to the character of
" an easy practice ;" and from thence elevated by your fathers
of Caen, as we have seen, without any distinction between
theory and practice, into a full permission. Thus you bring
your opinions to their full growth very gradually. Were
they presented all at once in their finished extravagance,
they would beget horror ; but this slow imperceptible pro-
gress gradually habituates men to the sight of them, and
hides their offensiveness. And in this way the permission
to murder, in itself so odious both to Church and State, creeps
first into the Church, and then from the Church into the
State.

A similar success has attended the opinion of " killing for
lander," which has now reached the climax of a permission
without any distinction. I should not have stopped to quote
my authorities on this point from your writings, had it not
been necessary in order to put down the effrontery with
which you have asserted, twice over, in your fifteenth Impos-
ture, " that there never was a Jesuit who permitted killing
for slander." Before making this statement, fathers, you

O »

should have taken care to prevent it from coming under my

fcotice, seeing that it is so easy for me to answer it. For

1 In Prolog., n. 15.

KILLING FOR SLANDER. 347

flot to mention that your fathers Reginald, Filiutius, and oth-
ers, hiive permitted it in speculation, as I have already shown,
and that the principle laid down by Escobar leads us safely
on to the practice, I have to tell you that you have authors
who have permitted it in so many words, and among others
Father Hereau in his public lectures, on the conclusion of
which the king put him under arrest in your house, for hav-
ng taught, among other errors, that when a person who has
slandered us in the presence of men of honor, continues to
do so after being warned to desist, it is allowable to kill him,
not publicly, indeed, for fear of scandal, but IN A PRIVATB
WAY — sed clam.

I have had occasion already to mention Father Lamy, and
you do not need to be informed that his doctrine on this sub-
ject was censured in 1649 by the University of Louvain.1
And yet two months have not elapsed since your Father Des
Bois maintained this very censured doctrine of Father Lamy,
and taught that " it was allowable for a monk to defend the
honor which he acquired by his virtue, EVEN BY KILLING the
person who assails his reputation — etiamcum morte invasoris ;"
which has raised such a scandal in that town, that the
whole of the cures united to impose silence on him, and to
oblige him, by a canonical process, to retract his doctrine.
The case is now pending in the Episcopal court.

What say you now, fathers ? Why attempt, after that,
to maintain that " no Jesuit ever held that it was lawful to
kill for slander ?" Is anything more necessary to convince
you of this than the very opinions of your fathers which you
quote, since they do not condemn murder in speculation, but
only in practice, and that, too, " on account of the injury
that might thereby accrue to the State ?" And here I would

1 The doctrines advanced by Lamy are too gross for repetition. Suf-
fice it to say, that they sanctioned the murder not only of the slanderer,
»ut of the person who might tell tales against a religious order, of one
ovho might stand in the way of another enjoying a legacy or a benefice,
and even of one whom a priest might have robbed of her honor, if she
threatened to rob him. of his. These horrid maxims were condemned
oy civil tnounals and theological faculties : but the Jesuits persisted in
ustifying them. (Nirole. Notes, iv. 41, &c.~\

348 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

just beg to ask, whether the whole matter in dispute between
us is not simply and solely to ascertain if you have or have
not subverted the law of God which condemns murder ? The
point in question is, not whether you have injured the com-
monwealth, but whether you have injured religion. What
purpose, then, can it serve, in a dispute of this kind, to show
that you have spared the State, when you i^ake it apparent,
at the same time, that you have destroyed the faith ? Is
this not evident from your saying that the meaning of Reg-
inald, on the question of killing for slanders, is, " that a pri-
vate individual has a right to employ that mode of defence,
viewing it simply in itself?" I desire nothing beyond this
concession to confute you. "A private individual." you say,
" has a right to employ that mode of defence" (that is, kill-
ing for slanders), "viewing the thing in itself;" and, conse-
quently, fathers, the law of God, which forbids us to kill, is
nullified by that decision.

It serves no purpose to add, as you have done, " that such
a mode is unlawful and criminal, even according to the law
of God, on account of the murders and disorders which
would follow in society, because the law of God obliges us
to have regard to the good of society." This is to evade
the question : for there are two laws to be observed — one
forbidding us to kill, and another forbidding us to harm so-
ciety. Reginald has not perhaps, broken the law which for-
bids us to do harm to society ; but he has most certainly
violated that which forbids us to kill. Now this is the only
point with which we have to do. I might have shown, be-
Bidcs, that your other writers, who have permitted these
murders in practice, have subverted the one law as well as
the other. But, to proceed, we have seen that you sometimes
forbid doing harm to the State ; and you allege that your
design in that is to fulfil the law of God, which obliges us to
consult the interests of society. That may be true, though
't is far from being certain, as you might do the same thing
ourely from fear of the civil magistrate.* With your per-

FEAR OF THE OO.VSEQUENCE8. 349

mission, then, we shall scrutinize the real secret of this move-
ment.

Is it not certain, lathers, that if you had really any regard
to God, and if the observance of his law had been the prime
and principal object in your thoughts, this respect would
have invariably predominated in all your leading decisions
and would have engaged you at all times on the side of re-
ligion ? But if it turns out, on the contrary, that you violate,
in innumerable instances, the most sacred commands thai
God has laid upon men, and that, as in the instances before
us, you annihilate the law of God, which forbids these ac-
tions as criminal in themselves, and that you only scruple to
approve of them in practice, from bodily fear of the civil
magistrate, do you not afford us ground to conclude that you
have no respect to God in your apprehensions, and that if
you yield an apparent obedience to his law, in so far as re-
gards the obligation to do no harm to the State, this is not
done out of any regard to the law itself, but to compass
your own ends, as has ever been the way with politicians of
no religion ?

What, fathers ! will you tell us that, looking simply to the
law of God, which says, " Thou shalt not kill," we have a
right to kill for slanders ? And after having thus trampled
on the eternal law of God, do you imagine that you atone
for the scandal you have caused, and can persuade us of your
reverence for him, by adding that you prohibit the practice
for State reasons, and from dread of the civil arm ? Is not
tfcis, on the contrary, to raise a fresh scandal ? — I mean not
oy the respect which you testify for the magistrate ; that is
not my charge against you, and it is ridiculous in you to ban-
ter, as you have done, on this matter. I blame you, not for
fearing the magistrate, but for fearing none but the magis-
trate. And I blame you for this, because it is making God
fess the enemy of vice than man. Had you said that to kill
for slander was allowatle according to men, but not accord -
iig to God, that might have been something more endurable ;
fcut when you maintain, that what is too criminal to be tol-

350 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

erated among men, may yet be innocent and right in the eyes
of that Being who is righteousness itself, what is this but to
declare before the whole world, by a subversion of principle
as shocking in itself as it is alien to the spirit of the saints,
that while you can be braggarts before God, you are cowards
before men ?

Had you really been anxious to condemn these homicides,
you would have allowed the commandment of God which
forbids them to remain intact ; and had you dared at once to
permit them, you would have permitted them openly, in spite
of the laws of God and men. But your object being to per-
mit them imperceptibly, and to cheat the magistrate, who
watches over the public safety, you have gone craftily to
work. You separate your maxims into two portions. On
the one side, you hold out " that it is lawful in speculation to
kill a man for slander ;" — and nobody thinks of hindering
you from taking a speculative view of matters. On the other
side, you come out with this detached axiom, " that what is
permitted in speculation is also permissible in practice ;" —
and what concern does society seem to have in this general
and metaphysical-looking proposition ? And thus these two
principles, so little suspected, being embraced in their sep-
arate form, the vigilance of the magistrate is eluded ; while
it is only necessary to combine the two together, to draw
from them the conclusion which you aim at — namely, that
it is lawful in practice to put a man to death for a simple
slander.

It is, indeed, fathers, one of the most subtle tricks of youi
policy, to scatter through your publications the maxims
which you club together in your decisions. It is partly in
this way that you establish your doctrine of probabilities,
which I have frequently had occasion to explain. That gen-
eral principle once established, you advance propositions
harmless enough when viewed apart, but which, when taken
in connection with that pernicious dogma, become positively
horrible. An example of this, which demands an answer,
way be found in the llth page of your " Impostures," where

THE POLICY OF JKSUITISM. 351

you allege that "several famous theologians have decided
that it is lawful to kill a man fora box on the ear." Now,
it is certain, that if that had been said by a person who did
not hold probabilism, there would be nothing to find fault
with in it ; it would in this case amount to no more than a
harmless statement, and nothing could be elicited from it.
But you, fathers, and all who hold that dangerous tenet,
" that whatever has been approved by celebrated authors is
probable and safe in conscience," when you add to this " that
several celebrated authors are of opinion that it is lawful to
kill a man for a box on the ear," what is this but to put a
dagger into the hand of all Christians, for the purpose of
plunging it into the heart of the first person that insults them,
and to assure them that, having the judgment of so many
grave authors on their side, they may do so with a perfectly
safe conscience ?

What monstrous species of language is this, which, in an-
nouncing that certain authors hold a detestable opinion, is at
the same time giving a decision in favor of that opinion —
which solemnly teaches whatever it simply tells ! We have
learnt, fathers, to understand this peculiar dialect of the
Jesuitical school ; and it is astonishing that you have the
hardihood to speak it out so freely, for it betrays your senti-
ments somewhat too broadly. It convicts you of permitting
murder for a buffet, as often as you repeat that many cele-
brated authors have maintained that opinion.

This charge, fathers, you will never be able to repel ; iior
will you be much helped out by those passages from Vas-
quez and Suarez that you adduce against me, in which they
condemn the murders which their associates have approved.
These testimonies, disjoined from the rest of your doctrine,
may hoodwink those who know little about it ; but we, who
know better, put your principles and maxims together. You
Bay, then, that Vasquez condemns murders ; but what say
you on the other side of the question, my reverend fathers ?
Why, " that the probability of one sentiment does not hinder
the probability of the opposite sentiment ; and that it is war-

352 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

rantable to follow the less probable and less safe opinion,
giving up the more probable and more safe one." What fol-
lows from all this taken in connection, but that we have per-
fect freedom of conscience to adopt any one of these conflict-
ing judgments which pleases us best ? And what becomes
of all the effect which you fondly anticipate from your quo-
tations ? It evaporates in smoke, for we have no more to do
than to conjoin for your condemnation the maxims which you
have disjoined for your exculpation. Why, then, produce
those passages of your authors which I have not quoted, to
qualify those which I have quoted, as if the one could excuse
the other ? What right does that give you to call me an
" impostor ?" Have I said that all your fathers are impli-
cated in the same corruptions ? Have I not, on the contrary,
been at pains to show that your interest lay in having them
of all different minds, in order to suit all your purposes ?
Do you wish to kill your man ? — here is Lessius for you.
Are you inclined to spare him ? — here is Vasquez. Nobody
need go away in ill humor — nobody without the authority of
a grave doctor. Lessius will talk to you like a Heathen on
homicide, and like a Christian, it may be, on charity. Vas-
quez, again, will descant like a Heathen on charity, and like
a Christian on homicide. But by means of probabilism,
which is held both by Vasquez and Lessius, and which
renders all your opinions common property, they will lend
their opinions to one another, and each will be held bound to
absolve those who have acted according to opinions which
each of them has condemned. It is this very variety, then,
that confounds you. Uniformity, even in evil, would be
better than this. Nothing is more contrary to the orders
of St. Ignatius1 and the first generals of your Society, than

1 It is very sad to see Pascal reduced to the necessity of saluting the
founder of the sect which he held up to the scorn of the world, as Saint
Ignatius! Ignatius Loyola was a native of Spain, and born in 1491.
At first a soldier of fortune, he was disabled from service by a wound
in the leg at the siege of Pampeluna, and his brain having become heated
by reading romances and legendary tales, he took it into his head to
oecome the Don Quixote of the Virgin, and wage war against all here-
tics and infidels By indomitable perseverance he succeeded in estab-

PROBABILI8M. 353

this confused medley of all sorts of opinions, good and bad,
I may, perhaps, enter on this topic at some future period ;
and it will astonish many to see how far you have degener-
ated from the original spirit of your institution, and that your
own generals have foreseen that the corruption of your doc-
trine on morals might prove fatal, not only to your Society,
but to the Church universal.1

Meanwhile, I repeat that you can derive no advantage from
the doctrine of Vasquez. It would be strange, indeed, if,
out of all the Jesuits that have written on morals, one or two
could not be found who may have hit upon a truth which has
been confessed by all Christians. There is no glory in main-
taining the truth, according to the Gospel, that it is unlawful
to kill a man for smiting us on the face ; but it is foul shame
to deny it. So far, indeed, from justifying you, nothing tells
more fatally against you than the fact that, having doctors
among you who have told you the truth, you abide not in the
truth, but love the darkness rather than the light. You have
been taught by Vasquez that it is a heathen, and not a Chris-
tian, opinion to hold that we may knock down a man for a
blow on the cheek ; and that it is subversive both of the Gos-
pel and of the decalogue to say that we may kill for such a
matter. The most profligate of men will acknowledge as
much. And yet you have allowed Lessius, Escobar, and oth-
ers, to decide, in the face of these well-known truths, and in

lishing the sect calling itself " the Society of Jesus." This ignorant
fanatic, who, in more enlightened times, would have been consigned to
a mad-house, was beatified by one pope, and canonized, or put into the
list of saints, by another ! Jansenius, in his correspondence with St.
Cyran, indignantly complains of pope Gregory XV. for having canon-
ized Ignatius and Xavier. (Leydecker, Hist. Jansen. 23.)

1 This is rather a singular fact, and applies only to one of the Soci-
ety's generals, viz., Vitelleschi, who, in a circular letter, addressed,
January 1617, to the Company, much to his own honor, strongly rec-
ommended a purer morality, and denounced probabilism. But. says
Nicole, the Jesuits did not profit by his good advice. (Nicole, iv., p.
33.) It is true, hnwever, that the Jesuits, during this century, had lost
sight of the original design of their order, and of all the ascetic rules of
jheir founders. Ignatius and Aquaviva. " The spirit which once ani-
jnated them had fallen before the temptations of the world, and their
lole endeavor now was to make themselves necessary to mankind, let
Jie means be what they might " (ft..nk«'s Hist, of the Popes, iii. 139.)

354 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

spite of all the laws of God against manslaughter, that it is
quite allowable to kill a man for a buffet !

What purpose, then, can it serve to set this passage of Vas-
quez over against the sentiment of Lessius, unless you mean
to show that, in the opinion of Vasquez, Lessius is a " hea-
then" and a " profligate ?" and that, fathers, is more than I
durst have said myself. What else can be deduced from it
than that Lessius " subverts both the Gospel and the deca-
logue ;" that, at the last day, Vasquez will condemn Lessius
on this point, as Lessius will condemn Vasquez on another;
and that all your fathers will rise up ir (udgment one against
another, mutually condemning each other for their sad out-
rages on the law of Jesus Christ ?

To this conclusion, then, reverend fathers, must we come
at length, that as your probabilism renders the good opinions
of some of your authors useless to the Church, and useful
only to your policy, they merely serve to betray, by their
contrariety, the duplicity of your hearts. This you have
completely unfolded, by telling us, on the one hand, that
Vasquez and Suarez are against homicide, and on the other
hand, that many celebrated authors are for homicide ; thus
presenting two roads to our choice, and destroying the sim-
plicity of the Spirit of God, who denounces his anathema on
the deceitful and the double-hearted : " Vce duplici corde, et
inrjredienti duabus viis ! — Woe be to the double hearts, and
the sinner that goeth two ways !'"

1 Ecclesiasticus (Apocrypha), ii. 12

LETTER XIV.

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS.

•JH WHICH THE MAXIMS OF THE JESUITS ON MURDER ARE REFUTED

FROM THE FATHERS SOME OF THEIR CALUMNIES ANSWERED BY

THE WAT — AND THEIR DOCTRINE COMPARED WITH THE FORMS
OBSERVED IN CRIMINAL TRIALS.

October 23, 1656.

REVEREND FATHERS, — If I had merely to reply to the three
remaining charges on the subject of homicide, there would
be no need for a long discourse, and you will see them refu-
ted presently in a few words ; but as I think it of much more
importance to inspire the public with a horror at your opin-
ions on this subject, than to justify the fidelity of my quota-
tions, I shall be obliged to devote the greater part of this let-
ter to the refutation of your maxims, to show you how far
you have departed from the sentiments of the Church, and
even of nature itself. The permissions of murder, which you
have granted in such a variety of cases, render it very ap-
parent, that you have so far forgotten the law of God, and
quenched the light of nature, as to require to be remanded to
the simplest principles of religion and of common sense.

What can be a plainer dictate of nature than that " no pri-
vate individual has a right to take away the life of another ?"
" So well are we taught this of ourselves," says St. Chrysos-
tom, " that God, in giving the commandment not to kill, did
not add as a reason that homicide was an evil ; because,
says that father, " the law supposes that nature has taught
us that truth already." Accordingly, this commandment
has been binding on men in all ages. The Gospel has con-
firmed the requirement of the law ; and the decalogue only

356 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

renewed the command which man had received from God
before the law, in the person of Noah, from whom all men
are descended. On that renovation of the world, God said
to the patriarch : " At the hand of man, and at the hand of
every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ; for
man is made in the image of God." (Gen. ix. 5, 6.) This
general prohibition deprives man of all power over the life
of man. And so exclusively has the Almighty reserved this
prerogative in his own hand, that, in accordance with Chris-
tianity, which is at utter variance with the false maxims of
Paganism, man has no power even over his own life. But, as
it has seemed good to his providence to take human society
under his protection, and to punish the evil-doers that give it
disturbance, he has himself established laws for depriving
criminals of life ; and thus those executions which, without
his sanction, would be punishable outrages, become, by vir-
tue of his authority, which is the rule of justice, praiseworthy
penalties. St. Augustine takes an admirable view of this
oubject. " God," he says, "has himself qualified this gen-
eral prohibition against manslaughter, both by the laws which
he has instituted for the capital punishment of malefactors,
and by the special orders which he has sometimes issued to
put to death certain individuals. And when death is inflicted
in such cases, it is not man that kills, but God, of whom man
may be considered as only the instrument, in the same way
as a sword in the hand of him that wields it. But, these
instances excepted, whosoever kills incurs the guilt of mur-
der."'

It appears, then, fathers, that the right of taking away the
life of man is the sole prerogative of God, and that having
ordained laws for executing death on criminals, he has depu-
ted kings or commonwealths as the depositaries of that power
— a truth which St. Paul teaches us, when, speaking of the
right which sovereigns possess over the lives of their sub-
jects, he deduces it from Heaven in these words : " He bear

1 City of God, book i. ch. 28

THE SCRIPTURE ON MURDER. So 7

eth not the sword in vain ; for he is the minister of God to
execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." (Rom. xiii. 4.)
But as it is God who has put this power into their hands, so
he requires them to exercise it in the same manner as he does
himself; in other words, with perfect justice; according to
what St. Paul observes in the same passage : " Rulers are not
a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou, then, not
be afraid of the power ? Do that which is good : for he is
the minister of God to thee for good." And this restriction,
so far from lowering their prerogative, exalts it, on the con-
trary, more than ever ; for it is thus assimilated to that of
God, who has no power to do evil, but is all-powerful to do
good ; and it is thus distinguished from that of devils, who
are impotent in that which is good, and powerful only for
evil. There is this difference only to be observed betwixt
the King of Heaven and earthly sovereigns, that God, being
justice and wisdom itself, may inflict death instantaneously
on whomsoever and in whatsoever manner he pleases ; for,
besides his being the sovereign Lord of human life, it is cer-
tain that he never takes it away either without cause or with-
out judgment, because he is as incapable of injustice as he is
of error. Earthly potentates, however, are not at liberty to
act in this manner; for, though the ministers of God, still
they are but men, and not gods. They may be misguided
by evil counsels, irritated by false suspicions, transported by
passion, and hence they find themselves obliged to have re-
course, in their turn also, to human agency, and appoint mag-
istrates in their dominions, to whom they delegate their power,
that the authority which God has bestowed on them may be
employed solely for the purpose for which they received it.

I hope you understand, then, fathers, that to avoid the
crime of murder, we must act at once by the authority of
God, and according to the justice of God ; and that when
these two conditions are not united, sin is contracted ; wheth-
er it be by taking away life with his authority, but without
his justice ; or by taking it away with justice, but without
his authority, From this indispensable connection it follows.

358 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

according to St. Augustine, "that he who, without proper
authority, kills a criminal, becomes a criminal himself, chiefly
for this reason, that he usurps an authority which God has
not given him ;" and on the other hand, magistrates, though
they possess this authority, are nevertheless chargeable *r ith
murder, if, contrary to the laws which they are bound to
follow, they inflict death on an innocent man.

Such are the principles of public safety and tranquillity
which have been admitted at all times and in all places, and
on the basis of which all legislators, sacred and profane, from
the beginning of the world, have founded their laws. Even
Heathens have never ventured to make an exception to this
rule, unless in cases where there was no other way of
escaping the loss of chastity or life, when they conceived,
as Cicero tells us, " that the law itself seemed to put its
weapons into the hands of those who were placed in such an
emergency."

But with this single exception, which has nothing to do
with my present purpose, that such a law was ever enacted,
authorizing or tolerating, as you have done, the practice of
putting a man to death, to atone for an insult, or to avoid
the loss of honor or property, where life is not in danger at
the same time ; that, fathers, is what I deny was ever done,
even by infidels. They have, on the contrary, most expressly
forbidden the practice. The law of the Twelve Tables of
Rome bore, " that it is unlawful to kill a robber in the day-
time, when he does not defend himself with arms ;" which,
indeed, had been prohibited long before in the 22d chapter
of Exodus. And the law Furem, in the Lex Cornelia, which
is borrowed from Ulpian, forbids the killing of robbers even
by night, if they do not put us in danger of our lives.1

Tell us now, fathers, what authority you have to permit
what all laws, human as well as divine, have forbidden ; and
who gave Lessius a right to use the following language ?
' The book of Exodus forbids the killing of thieves by day
ifhen they do not employ arms in their defence ; and in a
1 See Cujas, tit. dig. de just, et jur. ad 1. 3.

LESSIUS ON MURDER. 359

court of justice, punishment is inflicted on those who kill
under these circumstances. In conscience, however, no blame
can be attached to this practice, when a person is not sure
of being able otherwise to recover his stok o goods, or enter-
tains a doubt on the subject, as Sotus expresses it ; for he is
not obliged to run the risk of losing any part of his property
merely to save the life of a robber. The same privilege ex-
tends even to clergymen."1 Such extraordinaiy assurance !
The law of Moses punishes those who kill a thief wh^n he
does not threaten our lives, and the law of the Gospel, ac-
cording to you, will absolve them ! What, fathers ! has
Jesus Christ come to destroy the law, and not to fulfil it ?
"The civil judge," says Lessius, " would inflict punishment
on those who should kill under such circumstances ; but no
blame can be attached to the deed in conscience." Must we
conclude, then, thai the morality of Jesus Christ is more
sanguinary, and less the enemy of murder, than that of
Pagans, from whom our judges have borrowed their civil
laws which condemn that crime ? Do Christians make more
account of the good things of this earth, and less account of
human life, than infidels and idolaters ? On what principle
do you proceed, fathers ? Assuredly not upon any law that
ever was enacted either by God or man — on nothing, indeed,
but this extraordinary reasoning : " The laws," say you, " per-
mit us to defend ourselves against robbers, and to repel force
by force ; self-defence, therefore, being permitted, it follows
that murder, without which self-defence is often impractica-
ble, may be considered as permitted also."

It is false, fathers, that because self-defence is allowed,
murder may be allowed also. This barbarous method of
self-vindication lies at the root of all your errors, and has
been justly stigmatized by the Faculty of Louvain, in their
censure of the doctrine of your friend Father Lamy, a? <<
murderous defence — defensio occisiva." I maintain that the
laws recognize such a wide difference between murder and
»elf-defence, that in those very cases in which the latter is

1 L. 2, c. 9, n. 66, 72.

360 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

sanctioned, they have made a provision against murder, when
the person is in no danger of his life. Read the words, fa-
thers, as they run in the same passage of Cujas : " It is law-
ful to repulse the person who comes to invade our property ;
but we are not permitted to kill him. And again : " If any
should threaten to strike us, and not to deprive us of life, it
is quite allowable to repulse him ; but it is against all law
to put him to death."

Who, then, has given you a right to say, as Molina, Regi-
nald, Filiutius, Escobar, Lessius, and others among you,
have said, " that it is lawful to kill the man who offers to
strike us a blow ?" or, " that it is lawful to take the life of
one who means to insult us, by the common consent of all
the casuists," as Lessius says. By what authority do you,
who are mere private individuals, confer upon other private
individuals, not excepting clergymen, this right of killing and
slaying ? And how dare you usurp the power of life and
death, which belongs essentially to none but God, and which
is the most glorious mark of sovereign authority ? These
are the points that demand explanation ; and yet you con-
ceive that you have furnished a triumphant reply to the
whole, by simply remarking, in your thirteenth Imposture,
" that the value for which Molina permits us to kill a thief,
who flies without having done us any violence, is not so
small as I have said, and that it must be a much larger sum
than six ducats!" How extremely silly! Pray, fatheis,
where would you have the price to be fixed ? At fifteen or
sixteen ducats ? Do not suppose that this will produce any
abatement in my accusations. At all events, you cannot
make it exceed the value of a horse ; for Lessius is clearly of
opinion, " that we may lawfully kill the thief that runs off
with our horse."1 But I must tell you, moreover, that I
was perfectly correct when I said that Molina estimates the
value of the thief's life at six ducats ; and, if you will not
lake it upon my word, we shall refer it to an umpire, to
whom you cannot object. The person whom I fix upon fo'
1 L. ii., c. 9 n. 74. ,

MOLINA ON MURDER. 361

this office is your own Father Reginald, who, in his explana-
tion of the same passage of Molina (1. 28, n. 68), declares
that " Molina there DETERMINES the sum for which it is not
allowable to kill at three, or four, or five ducats." And
thus, fathers, I shall have Reginald in addition to Molina, to
bear me out.

It will be equally easy for me to refute your fourteenth
Imposture, touching Molina's permission to " kill a thief who
offers to rob us of a crown." This palpable fact is attested
by Escobar, who tells us " that Molina has regularly deter-
mined the sum for which it is lawful to take away life, at one
crown."1 And all you have to lay to my charge in the
fourteenth imposture is, that I have suppressed the last
words of this passage, namely, " that in this matter every
one ought to study the moderation of a just self-defence."
Why do you not complain that Escobar has also omitted to
mention these words ? But how little tact you have about
you ! You imagine that nobody understands what you mean
by self-defence. Don't we know that it is to employ " a
murderous defence ?" You would persuade us that Molina
meant to say, that if a person, in defending his crown, finds
himself in danger of his life, he is then at liberty to kill his
assailant, in self-preservation. If that were true, fathers,
why should Molina say in the same place, that "in this mat-
ter he was of a contrary judgment from Carrer and Bald,"
who give permission to kill in self-preservation ? I repeat,
therefore, that his plain meaning is, that provided the person
can save his crown without killing the thief, he ought not to
kill him ; but that, if he cannot secure his object without
shedding blood, even though he should run no risk of his
own life, as in the case of the robber being unarmed, he is
permitted to take up arms and kill the man, in order to save
his crown ; and in so doing, according to him, the person
Joes not transgress " the moderation of a just defence." To
show you that I am in the right, just allow him to explain
himself: "One does not exceed the moderation of a just de-

»l Treat, i, examp. 7, n. 44.
Ifl

362 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

fence," says he, " when he takes up arms against a thief who
has none, or employs weapons which give him the advantage
over his assailant. I know there are some who are of a con-
trary judgment ; but I do not approve of their opinion, even
in the external tribunal."1

Thus, fathers, it is unquestionable that your authors have
given permission to kill in defence of property and honor,
though life should be perfectly free from danger. And it is
upon the same principle that they authorize duelling, as I
have shown by a great variety of passages from their writ-
ings, to which you have made no reply. You have animad-
verted in your writings only on a single passage taken from
Father Layman, who sanctions the above practice, " when
otherwise a person would be in danger of sacrificing his
fortune or his honor ;" and here you accuse me with having
suppressed what he adds, " that such a case happens very
rarely.'' You astonish me, fathers : these are really curious
impostures you charge me withal. You talk as if the ques-
tion were, Whether that is a rare case ? when the real ques-
tion is, If, in such a case, duelling is lawful ? These are two
very different questions. Layman, in the quality of a casuist,
ought to judge whether duelling is lawful in the case sup-
posed ; and he declares that it is. We can judge without his
assistance, whether the case be a rare one ; and we can tell
him that it is a very ordinary one. Or, if you prefer the
testimony of your good friend Diana, he will tell you that
''the case is exceedingly common."2 But be it rare or not,
and let it be granted that Layman follows in this the exam-
ple of Navarre, a circumstance on which you lay so much
stress, is it not shameful that he should consent to such an
opinion as that, to preserve a false honor, it is lawful in con-

1 In casuistical divinity, a distinction is drawn between the internal
ana the external tribunal, or forum, as it is called. The internal tribu-
nal, or the forum poll, is that of conscience, or the judgment formed of
actions according to the law of God. The external tribunal, or the
forum soli, is that of human society, or the judgment of actions in the
estimation of men, and according to civil law. (Voet.Disp. Theol., iv
S2.)

1 Part. 5. tr. 1fl, misc. 2, resol. M. ,

KILLING FOR AN APPLE. 363

cience to accept of a challenge, in the face of the edicts of
all Christian states, and of all the canons of the Church,
while, in support of these diabolical maxims, you can pro-
duce neither laws, nor canons, nor authorities from Scripture,
or from the fathers, nor the example of a single saint, nor, in
short, anything but the following impious syllogism : " Honor
is more than life it is allowable to kill in defence of life ;
therefore it is allowable to kill in defence of honor !" What,
fathers ! because the depravity of men disposes them to pro-
fer that factitious honor before the life which God hath given
them to be devoted to his service, must they be permitted to
murder one another for its preservation ? To love that
honor more than life, is in itself a heinous evil ; and yet this
vicious passion, which, when proposed as the end of our con-
duct, is enough to tarnish the holiest of actions, is considered
by you capable of sanctifying the most criminal of them !

What a subversion of all principle is here, fathers ! And
who does not see to what atrocious excesses it may lead ?
It is obvious, indeed, that it will ultimately lead to the com-
mission of murder for the most trifling things imaginable,
when one's honor is considered to be staked for their preser-
vation— murder, I venture to say, even for an apple ! You
might complain of me, fathers, for drawing sanguinary Infer-
ences from your doctrine with a malicious intent, were I not
fortunately supported by the authority of the grave Lessius,
who makes the following observation, in number 68 : " It is
not allowable to take life for an article of small value, such as
for a crown or for an apple — aut pro porno — unless it would
be deemed dishonorable to lose it. In this case, one may
recover the article, and even, if necessary, kill the aggressor
for this is not so much defending one's property as retrieving
one's honor." This is plain speaking, fathers; and, just to
crown yonr doctrine with a maxim which includes all the rest,
allow me to quote the following from Father Hereau, who
has taken it from Lessius: " The right of self-defence extends
to whatever is necessary to protect ourselves from all in-
jury."

364 PROVINCIAL LITTERS.

What strange consequences does this inhuman principle
involve ! and how imperative is the obligation laid upon all,
and especially upon those in public stations, to set their face
against it ! Not the general good alone, but their own per-
sonal interest should engage them to see well to it ; for the
casuists of your school whom I have cited in my letters, ex-
tend their permissions to kill far enough to reach even them.
Factious men, who dread the punishment of their outrages,
which never appear to them in a criminal light, easily per-
fiuade themselves that they are the victims of violent oppres-
sion, and will be led to believe at the same time, " that the
right of self-defence extends to whatever is necessary to pro-
tect themselves from all injury." And thus, relieved from
contending against the checks of conscience, which stifle the
greater number of crimes at their birth, their only anxiety
will be to surmont external obstacles.

I shall say no more on this subject, fathers ; nor shall I
dwell on the other murders, still more odious and important
to governments, which you sanction, and of which Lessius,
in common with many others of your authors, treats in the
most unreserved manner.1 It was to be wished that these
horrible maxims had never found their way out of hell ; and
that the devil, who is their original author, had never discov-
ered men sufficiently devoted to his will to publish them
among Christians.9

From all that I have hitherto said, it is easy to judge what
a contrariety there is betwixt the licentiousness of your opin-
ions and the severity of civil laws, not even excepting those

1 Doubts 4th and 10th.

a " I am happy," says Nicole, in a note, " to state here an important
fact, which confers the highest honor on M. Arnauld. A work of cori
•iderable size was sent him before going 'o press, in which there was a
collection of all the authorities, from Jesuit writers, prejudicial to the life
of kfngs and princes. That celebrated doctor prevented the impression
of the work, on the ground that it was dangerous for the life of mon-
archs and for the honor of the Jesuits that it should ever see the light ;
ind, in fact, the work was never printed. Some other writer, less deli-
cate than M. Arnauld. has published something similar, in a work en-
titled Recueil de Pieces concernant I' Histoire de la Compagnie de Jes:t3
var le P. Jouvenci."

THE CHURCH ON MURDER. 365

of heathens. How much more apparent must the contrast
be with ecclesiastical laws, which must be incomparably more
holy than any other, since it is the Church alone that knows
and possesses the true holiness! Accordingly, this chaste
spouse of the Son of God, who, in imitation of her heavenly
husband, can shed her own blood for others, but never the
blood of others for herself, entertains a horror at the crime
of murder altogether singular, and proportioned to the pecu-
liar illumination which God has vouchsafed to bestow upon
her. She views man, not simply as man, but as the image
of the jGod whom she adores. She feels for every one of .the
race a holy respect, which imparts to him, in her eyes, a
venerable character, as redeemed by an infinite price, to be
made the temple of the living God. And therefore she
considers the death of a man, slain without the authority of
his Maker, not as murder only, but as saciilege, by which
she is deprived of one of her members ; for whether he be a
believer or an unbeliever, she uniformly looks upon him, if
not as one, at least as capable of becoming one, of her own
children.1

Such, fathers, are the holy reasons which, ever since the
time that God became man for the redemption of men, have
rendered their condition an object of such consequence to
the Church, that she uniformly punishes the crime of homi-
cide, not only as destructive to them, but as one of the gross-
est outrages that can possibly be perpetrated against God.
In proof of this I shall quote some examples, not from the
dea that all the severities to which I refer ought to be kept
»p (for I am aware that the Church may alter the arrange-

1 Surely Pascal is here describing the Church of Christ as she ought
to be, and not the Church of Rome as she existed in 1656. at the very
time when she was urging, sanctioning and exulting in the bloody
baibarities perpetrated in her name on the poor Piedmontese ; or the
same Church as she appeared in 1572, when one of her popes ordered
i medal to be struck in honor of the Bartholomew massacre, with the
Ascription, " Strages Hugonotarum — The massacre of the Hugunots !''
Of what Church, if not the Romish, can it be said with truth, that, "in
her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that
*cere slain on the earth 1"

306 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Went of such exterior discipline), but to demonstrate her im-
mutable spirit upon this subject. The penances which she
ordains for murder may differ according to the diversity of
the times, but no change of time can ever effect an alteration
of the horror with which she regards the crime itself.

For a long time the Church refused to be reconciled, till
the very hour of death, to those who had been guilty of wil-
ful murder, as those are to whom you give your sanction.
The celebrated Council of Ancyra adjudged them to penance
during their whole lifetime ; and, subsequently, the Church
deemed it an act of sufficient indulgence to reduce that term
to a great many years. But, still more effectually to deter
Christians from wilful murder, she has visited with most
severe punishment even those acts which have been com-
mitted through inadvertence, as may be seen in St. Basil, in
St. Gregory of Nyssen, and in the decretals of Popes Zachary
and Alexander II. The canons quoted by Isaac, bishop of
Langres (tr. 2. 13), "ordain seven years of penance for hav-
ing killed another in self-defence." And we find St. Hilde-
bert, bishop of Mans, replying to Yves de Chartres, " that he
was right in interdicting for life a priest who had, in self-
defence, killed a robber with a stone."

After this, you cannot have the assurance to persist in say-
ing that your decisions are agreeable to the spirit or the
canons of the Church. I defy you to show one of them that
permits us to kill solely in defence of our property (for I
speak not of cases in which one may be called upon to defend
his life — se suaqae liberando) : your own authors, and, among
the rest, Father Lamy, confess that no such canon can be
found. " There is no authority," he says, " human or divine,
which gives an express permission to kill a robber who makes
no resistance." And yet this is what you permit most ex-
pressly. I defy you to show one of them that permits us to
Kill in vindication of honor, for a buffet, for an affront, or for
ft slander. I defy you to show one of them that permits the
killing of witnesses, judges, or magistrates, whatever injustice
we may apprehend from them. The spirit of the church it

CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION. 367

diametrically opposite to these seditious maxims, opening the
door to insurrections to which the mob is naturally prone
enough already. She has invariably taught her children that
they ought not to render evil for evil ; that they ought to
give place unto wrath ; to make no resistance to violence ; to
give unto every one his due — honor, tribute, submission ; to
obey magistrates and superiors, even though they should be
unjust, because we ought always to respect in them the power
of that God who has placed them over us. She forbids them,
still more strongly than is done by the civil law, to take jus-
tice into their own hands ; and it is in her spirit that Chris-
tian kings decline doing so in cases of high treason, and
remit the criminals charged with this grave offence into the
hands of the judges, that they may be punished according
to the laws and the forms of justice, which in this matter
exhibit a contrast to your mode of management, so striking
and complete that it may well make you blush for shame.

As my discourse has taken this turn, I beg you to follow
the comparison which I shall now draw between the style
in which you would dispose of your enemies, and that in
which the judges of the land dispose of criminals. Every-
body knows, fathers, that no private individual has a right to
demand the death of another individual ; and that though a
man should have ruined us, maimed our body, burnt our
house, murdered our father, and was prepared, moreover, to
assassinate ourselves, or ruin our character, our private de-
mand for the death of that person would not be listened to in
a court of justice. Public officers have been appointed for
that purpose, who make the demand in the name of the king,
»r rather, I would say, in the name of God. Now, do you
Conceive, fathers, that Christian legislators have established
this regulation out of mere show and grimace ? Is it not
evident that their object was to harmonize the laws of the
state with those of the Church, and thus prevent the external
practice of justice from clashing with the sentiments which
all Christians are bound to cherish in their hearts ? It is
easy to see how this, which forms the commencement of a

868 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

civil process, must stagger you; its subsequent procedure
absolutely overwhelms you.

Suppose, then, fathers, that these official persons have de-
manded the death of the man who has committed all the
above mentioned crimes, what is to be done next ? WiH
they instantly plunge a dagger in his breast ? No, fathers ;
the life of man is too important to be thus disposed of; they
go to work with more decency ; the laws have committed it,
not to all sorts of persons, but exclusively to the judges,
whose probity and competency have been duly tried. And
is one judge sufficient to condemn a man to death ? No ; it
requires seven at the very least ; and of these seven there
must not be one who has been injured by the criminal, lest
his judgment should be warped or corrupted by passion.
You are aware also, fathers, that the more effectually to secure
the purity of their minds, they devote the hours of the morn-
ing to these functions. Such is the care taken to prepare
them for the solemn action of devoting a fellow-creature to
death ; in performing which they occupy the place of God,
whose ministers they are, appointed to condemn such only as
have incurred his condemnation.

For the same reason, to act as faithful administrators of
the divine power of taking away human life, they are bound
to form their judgment solely according to the depositions
of the witnesses, and according to all the other forms pre-
scribed to them ; after which they can pronounce conscien-
tiously only according to law, and can judge worthy of death
.hose only .whom the law condemns to that penalty. And
then, fathers, if the command of God obliges them to deliver
over to punishment the bodies of the unhappy culprits, the
same divine statute binds them to look after the interests of
their guilty souls, and binds them the more to this just be-
cause they are guilty; so that they are not delivered up to
execution till after they have been afforded the means of pro-
viding for their consciences.1 All this is quite fair and in-

1 Providing for their eontciences — that is, for the relief of conscience,
by confessing to a priest, and receiving absolution.

JESUITICAL LEGISLATION. 369

Decent, ; and yet, such is the abhorrence of the Church to
blood, that she judges those to be incapable of ministering at
her altars who have borne any share in passing or executing
a sentence of death, accompanied though it be with these
religious circumstances ; from which we may easily conceive
what idea the Church entertains of murder.

Such, then, being the manner in which human life is dis-
posed of by the legal forms of justice, let us now see how
you dispose of it. According to your modern system of leg-
islation, there is but one judge, and that judge is no other
than the offended party. He is at once the judge, the party,
and the executioner. He himself demands from himself the
death of his enemy ; he condemns him, he executes him on
the spot ; and, without the least respect either for the soul or
the body of his brother, he murders and damns him for
whom Jesus Christ died ; and all this for the sake of avoid-
ing a blow on the cheek, or a slander, or an offensive word,
or some other offence of a similar nature, for which, if a mag-
istrate, in the exercise of legitimate authority, were condemn-
ing any to die, he would himself be impeached ; for, in such
cases, the laws are very far indeed from condemning any to
death. In one word, to crown the whole of this extrava-
gance, the person who kills his neighbor in this style, without
authority, and in the face of all law, contracts no sin and
*oininits no disorder, though he should be religious, and even
a priest ! Where are we, fathers ? Are these really relig-
ious, and priests, who talk in this manner ? Are they Chris-
tians ? are they Turks ? are they men ? or are they demons ?
And are these " the mysteries revealed by the Lamb to his
Society ?" or are they not rather abominations suggested by
the Dragon to those who take part with him ?

To come to the point, with you, fathers, whom do you wish
to be taken for ? — for the children of the Gospel, or for the
enemies of the Gospel ? You must be ranged either on the
sae side or on the other; for there is no medium here. " He
that is not with Jesus Christ is against him." Into these two
Jasses all mankind are divided. There are, according to

16*

370 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Bt. Augustine, two peoples and two worlds, scattered abroad
over the earth. There is the world of the children of God,
who form one body, of which Jesus Christ is the king and
the head ; and there is the world at enmity with God, of
which the devil is the king and the head. Hence Jesua
Christ is called the King and God of the world, because he
has everywhere his subjects and worshippers ; and hence the
devil is also termed in Scripture the prince of this world, and
the god of this world, because he has everywhere his agents
and his slaves; Jesus Christ has imposed upon the Church,
which is his empire, such laws as he, in his eternal wisdom,
was pleased to ordain ; and the devil has imposed on the
world, which is his kingdom, such laws as he chose to estab-
lish. Jesus Christ has associated honor with suffering ; the
devil with not suffering. Jesus Christ has told those who
are smitten on the one cheek to turn the other also ; and the
devil has told those who are threatened with a buffet to kill
the man that would do them such an injury. Jesus Christ
pronounces those happy who share in his reproach ; and the
devil declares those to be unhappy who lie under ignominy.
Jesus Christ says, Woe unto you when men shall speak well
of you ! and the devil says, Woe unto those of whom the
world does not speak with esteem !

Judge then, fathers, to which of these kingdoms you be-
long. You have heard the language of the city of peace,
the mystical Jerusalem ; and you have heard the language of
the city of confusion, which Scripture terms " the spiritual
Sodom." Which of these two languages do you understand ?
which of them do you speak ? Those who are on the side
of Jesus Christ have, as St. Paul teaches us, the same mind
which was also in him ; and those who are the children of
the devil — ex patre diabolo — who has been a murderer from
.he beginning, according to the saying of Jesus Christ, follow
uhe maxims of the devil. Let us hear, therefore, the lan-
guage of your school. I put this question to your doctors :
When a person has given me a blow on the cheek, ought I
rather to submit to the injury than kill the offender ? or may I

JESUITICAL LEGISLATION. S<1

not kill the man in order to escape the affront ? Kill him by
all means — it is quite lawful ! exclaim, in one breath, Lessius,
Molina, Escobar, Reginald, Filiutius, Baldelle, and other Jesu-
its. Is that the language of Jesus Christ? One question
more : Would I lose my honor by tolerating a box on the
ear, without killing the person that gave it ? " Can there be
a doubt," cries Escobar, " that so long as a man suffers an-
other to live who has given him a buffet, that man remains
without honor ?" Yes, fathers, without that honor which
the devil transfuses, from his own proud spirit into that of
his proud children. This js the honor which has ever been
the idol of worldly-minded men. For the preservation of
this false glory, of which the god of this world is the appro-
priate dispenser, they sacrifice their lives by yielding to the
madness of duelling ; their honor, by exposing themselves to
ignominious punishments ; and their salvation, by involving
themselves in the peril of damnation — a peril which, accord-
ing to the canons of the Church, deprives them even of
Christian burial. We have reason to thank God, however,
for having enlightened the mind of our monarch with ideas
much purer than those of your theology. His edicts bearing
so severely on this subject, have not made duelling a crime —
they only punish the crime which is inseparable from duel-
ling. He has checked, by the dread of his rigid justice, those
who were not restrained by the fear of the justice of God ;
and his piety has taught him that the honor of Christians
consists in their observance of the mandates of Heaven and
the rules of Christianity, and not in the pursuit of that phan-
tom which, airy and unsubstantial as it is, you hold to be a
legitimate apology for murder. Your murderous decisions
being thus universally detested, it is highly advisable that
you should now change your sentiments, if not from religious
principle, at least from motives of policy. Prevent, fathei-s,
by a spontaneous condemnation of these inhuman dogmas,
the melancholy consequences which may result from them,
and for which you will be responsible. And to impress your
minds with a deeper horror at homicide, remember that the

372 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

first crime of fallen man was a murder, committed on the
person of the first holy man ; that the greatest crime was a
murder, perpetrated on the person of the King of saints ;
and that of all crimes, murder is the only one which involves
in a common destruction the Church and the state, nature
and religion.

I have just seen the answer of your apologist to my Thir-
teenth Letter ; but if he has nothing better to produce in the
shape of a reply to that letter, which obviates the greater
part of his objections, he will not deserve a rejoinder. I am
sorry to see him perpetually digressing from his subject, to
indulge in rancorous abuse both of the living and the dead.
But, in order to gain some credit to the stories with which you
have furnished him, you should not have made him publicly
disavow a fact so notorious as that of the buffet of Com-
piegne.1 Certain it is, fathers, from the deposition of the
injured party, that he received upon his cheek a blow from
the hand of a Jesuit ; and all that your friends have been
able to do for you has been to raise a doubt whether he re-
ceived the blow with the back or the palm of the hand, and
to discuss the question whether a stroke on the cheek with
the back of the hand can be properly denominated a buffet.
I know not to what tribunal it belongs to decide this poi'.t ;
but shall content myself, in the mean time, with believing t "iat
it was, to say the very least, a probable buffet. This go'/ i me
.>(!' with a safe conscience.

1 See Letter xiiL, p. 842.

LETTER XV.1

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS.

SHOWING THAT THE JESUITS FIRST EXCLUDE CALUMNY FROM THEIH
CATALOGUE OF CRIMES, AND THEN EMPLOY IT IN DENOUNCING
THEIR OPPONENTS.

November 25, 1656.

REVEREND FATHERS, — As your scurrilities are daily in-
creasing, and as you are employing them in the merciless
abuse of all pious persons opposed to your errors, I feel my-
self obliged, for their sake and that of the Church, to bring
out that grand secret of your policy, which I promised to
disclose some time ago, in order that all may know, through
means of your own maxims, what degree of credit is due to
your calumnious accusations.

I am aware that those who are not very well acquainted
with you, are at a great loss what to think on this subject, as
they find themselves under the painful necessity, either of
believing the incredible crimes with which you charge your
opponents, or (what is equally incredible) of setting you
down as slanderers. " Indeed !" they exclaim, " were these
things not true, would clergymen publish them to the world
— would they debauch their consciences and damn themselves
by ventlr.g such libels ?" Such is their way of reasoning,
and thus it is that the palpable proof of your falsifications
coming into collision with their opinion of your honesty, their
winds hang in a state of suspense between the evidence of
truth which they cannot gainsay, and the demands of charity
which they would not violate. It follows, that since their

1 Pascal was assisted by M. Arnault! in the preparation of this letter.
'Nicole, iv. 162.)

37-t PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

high esteem for you is the only thing that prevents them
from discrediting your calumnies, if we can succeed in con-
vincing them that you have quite a different idea of calumny
from that which they suppose you to have, and that you act-
ually believe that in blackening and defaming your adver-
saries you are working out your own salvation, there can be
little question that the weight of truth will determine them
immediately to pay no regard to your accusations. This,
fathers, will be the subject of the present letter.

My design is, not simply to show that your writings are
full of calumnies : I mean to go a step beyond this. It is
quite possible for a person to say a number of false things
believing them to be true ; but the character of a liar im-
plies the intention to tell lies. Now I undertake to prove,
fathers, that it is your deliberate intention to tell lies, and
that it is both knowingly and purposely that you load your
opponents with crimes of which you know them to be inno-
cent, because you believe that you may do so without falling
from a state of grace. Though you doubtless know this
point of your morality as well as I do, this need not prevent
me from telling you about it ; which I shall do, were it for
no other purpose than to convince all men of its existence,
by showing them that I can maintain it to your face, while
you cannot have the assurance to disavow it, without confirm-
ing, by that very disavowment, the charge which I bring
against you.

The doctrine to which I allude is so common in your
schools, that you have maintained it not only in your books,
but, such is your assurance, even in your public theses; as,
for example, in those delivered at Louvain in the year 1645,
where it occurs in the following terms: " What is it but a
venial sin to culminate and forge false accusations to ruin
the credit of those who speak evil of us ?" ' So settled is
this point among you, that if any one dare to oppose it, yon
treat him as a blockhead and a hare-brained idiot. Such

1 Quidni non nisi veniale sit, detrahentes autoritatem magnam, tibi
»oxiam, false crimine elidere ?

ON CALUMNY. 375

was the way in which you treated Father Quiroga, the Ger-
man Capuchin, when he was so unfortunate as to impugn
the doctrine. The poor man was instantly attacked by
Dicastille, one of your fraternity ; and the following is a
specimen of the manner in which he manages the dispute :
" A certain rueful- visaged, bare-footed, cowled friar — cucul-
latus gymnopoda — whom I do not choose to name, had the
boldness to denounce this opinion, among some women and
ignorant people, and to allege that it was scandalous and
pernicious against all good manners, hostile to the peace of
states and societies, and, in short, contrary to the judgment
not only of all Catholic doctors, but of all true Catholics.
But in opposition to him I maintained, as I do still, that cal-
umny, when employed against a calumniator, though it should
be a falsehood, is not a mortal sin, either against justice or
charity : and to prove the point, I referred him to the whole
body of our fathers, and to whole universities, exclusively
composed of them, whom I had consulted on the subject ;
and among others the reverend Father John Gans, confessor
to the emperor; the reverend Father Daniel Bastele, con-
fensor to the archduke Leopold ; Father Henri, who was
preceptor to these two princes ; all the public and ordinary
professors of the university of Vienna" (wholly composed of
Jesuits); "all the professors of the university of Gratz" (all
Jesuits) ; " all the professors of the university of Prague"
(where Jesuits are the masters) ; — " from all of whom I have
in my possession approbations of my opinions, written and
signed with their own hands; besides having on my side the
reverend Father Panalossa, a Jesuit, preacher to the emperor
and the king of Spain ; Father Pilliceroli, a Jesuit, and many
others, who had all judged this opinion to be probable, be-
fore our dispute began." l You perceive, fathers, that there
are few of your opinions which you have been at more pains
to establish than the present, as indeed there were few of
them of which you stood more in need. For this reason,
doubtless, you have authenticated it so well, that the casuists

1 Dicastillus, De Just., I. 2, tr. 2, disp. 12, n. 404.

if 7 6 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

appeal to it as an indubitable principle. "There «an be no
doubt," says Cararauel, " that it is a probable opinion that
we contract no mortal sin by calumniating another, in order
to preserve our own reputation. For it is rnaintained by
more than twenty grave doctors, by Gaspard Hurtado, and
Dicastille, Jesuits, &c. ; so that, were this doctrine not prob-
able, it would be difficult to find any one such in the whole
compass of theology."

Wretched indeed must that theology be, and rotten to
the very core, which, unless it has been decided to be safe in
conscience to defame our neighbor's character to preserve
our own, can hardly boast of a safe decision on any other
point ! How natural is it, fathers, that those who hold this
principle should occasionally put it in practice ! The cor-
rupt propensity of mankind leans so strongly in that direc-
tion of itself, that the obstacle of conscience once being re-
moved, it would be folly to suppose that it will not burst
forth with all its native impetuosity. If you desire an ex-
ample of this, Caramuel will furnish you with one that oc-
curs in the same passage : " This maxim of Father Dicastille,"
he says, " having been communicated by a German countess
to the daughters of the empress, the belief thus impressed
on their minds that calumny was only a venial sin, gave rise
in the course of a few days to such an immense number of
false and scandalous tales, that the whole court was thrown
into a flame and filled with alarm. It is easy, indeed, to
conceive what a fine use these ladies would make of the new
light they had acquired. Matters proceeded to such a length,
that it was found necessary to call in the assistance of a wor-
thy Capuchin friar, a man of exemplary life, called Father
Qniroga " (the very man whom Dicastille rails at so bitterly),
" who assured them that the maxim was most pernicious,
especially among women, and was at the greatest pains to
prevail upon the empress to abolish the practice of it en-
tirely." We have no reason, therefore, to be surprised at the
bad effects of this doctrine; on the contrary, the wonder
vould be, if it had failed to produce them. Self-love is at

ON CALUMNY. 377

ways ready enough to whisper in our ear, when we are at
tacked, that we suffer wrongfully; and more particularly in
your case, fathers, whom vanity has blinded so egregiously
as to make you believe that to wound the honor of your So-
ciety, is to wound that of the Church. There would have
been good ground to look on it as something miraculous, if
you had not reduced this maxim to practice. Those who
do not know you are ready to say, How could these good
lathers slander their enemies, when they cannot do so but
at the expense of their own salvation ? But if they knew
you better, the question would be, How could these good
fathers forego the advantage of decrying their enemies, when
they have it in their power to do so without hazarding their
salvation ? Let none, therefore, henceforth be surprised to
find the Jesuits calumniators ; they can exercise this vocation
with a safe conscience ; there is no obstacle in heaven or on
earth to prevent them. In virtue of the credit they have
acquired in the world, they can practise defamation without
dreading the justice of mortals ; and, on the strength of then
self- assumed authority in matters of conscience, they hav«
invented maxims for enabling them to do it Without any fea
of the justice of God.

This, fathers, is the fertile source of your base slanders
On this principle was Father Brisacier led to scatter his cal
umnies about him, with such zeal as to draw down on hi>
head the censure of the late Archbishop of Paris. Actuated
by the same motives, Father D'Anjou launched his invec-
tives from the pulpit of the Church of St. Benedict in Paris,
on the 8th of March, 1655, against those honorable gentle-
men who were intrusted with the charitable funds raised for
xhe poor of Picardy and Champagne, to which they them-
selves had largely contributed ; and, uttering a base falsehood,
calculated (if your slanders had been considered worthy of
any credit) to dry up the stream of that charity, he had the
assurance to say, " that he knew, from go-^d authority, that
Certain persons had diverted that money from its proper use,
to employ it against the Church and the State;" a calumny

378 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

which obliged the curate of the parish, who is a doctor of
the Sorbonne, to mount the pulpit the very next day, in
order to give it the lie direct. To the same source must be
traced the conduct of your Father Crasset, who preached
calumny at such a furious rate in Orleans that the archbishop
of that place was under the necessity of interdicting him as
a public slanderer. In his mandate, dated the 9th of Sep-
tember last, his lordship declares, " That whereas he had
been informed that Brother Jean Crasset, priest of the Soci
ety of Jesus, had delivered from the pulpit a discourse filled
with falsehoods and calumnies against the ecclesiastics of thia
city, falsely and maliciously charging them with maintaining
impious and heretical propositions, such as, That the com-
mandments of God are impracticable; that internal grace is
irresistible ; that Jesus Christ did not die for all men ; and
others of a similar kind, condemned by Innocent X. : he
therefore hereby interdicts the aforesaid Crasset from preach-
ing in his diocese, and forbids all his people to hear him, on
pain of mortal disobedience." The above, fathers, is your
ordinary accusation, and generally among the first that you
bring against an whom it is your interest to denounce. And
although you should find it as impossible to substantiate the
charge against any of them, as Father Crnsset did in the
case of the clergy of Orleans, your peace of conscience will
not be in the least disturbed on that account ; for you be-
lieve that this mode of calumniating your adversaries is
permitted you with such certainty, that you have no scruple
to avow it in the most public manner, and in the face of a
whole city.

A remarkable proof of this may be seen in the dispute you
had with M. Puys, curate of St. Nisier at Lyons ; and the
story exhibits so complete an illustration of your spirit, that
I shall take the liberty of relating some of its leading circum-
stances. You know, fathers, that, in the year 1649, M.
Puys translated into French an excellent book, written by
another Capuchin friar, " On the duty which Christians owe
to their own parishes, against those that would lead them

M. PUYS AND FATHER ALBY. 379

away from them," without using a single invective, or point-
ing to any monk or any order of monks in particular. Your
fathers, however, were pleased to put the cap on their own
heads; and without any respect to an aged pastor, a judge
in the Primacy of France, and a man who was held in the
highest esteem by the whole city, Father Alby wrote a fu-
rious tract against him, which you sold in your own church
upon Assumption-day ; in which book, among other various
charges, he accused him of having " made himself scandalous
by his gallantries," described him as suspected of having
no religion, as a heretic, excommunicated, and, in short,
worthy of the stake. To this M. Puys made a reply ; and
Father Alby, in a second publication, supported his former
allegations. Now, fathers, is it not a clear point, either that
you were calumniators, or that you believed all that you
alleged against that worthy priest to be true ; and that, on
this latter assumption, it became you to see him purified
from all these abominations before judging him worthy of
your friendship ? Let us see, then, what happened at the
accommodation of the dispute, which took place in the pres-
ence of a great number of the principal inhabitants of the
town, whose names will be found at the foot of the page,1
exactly as they are set down in the instrument drawn up on
the 25th of September, 1650. Before all these witnesses
M. Puys made a declaration, which was neither more nor
less than this : " That what he had written was not directed
igainst the fathers of the Society of Jesus ; that he had spo-
en in general of those who alienated the faithful from their
parishes, without meaning by that to attack the Society ;
,.nd that so far from having such an intention, the Society

• M. De Ville. Vicar-General of M.. the Cardinal of Lyons; M.
Scarron. Canon and Curate of St. Paul ; M. Margat. Chanter; MM.
Bouvand. Seve, Aubert, and Dervien. Canons of St. Nisier; M. de Gue,
President of the Treasurers of France ; M. Groslier. Provost of the Mer-
chants; M. de Flechre President and Lieutenant-General; MM. D«
Boissart De St. Romain and De Bartoly. gentlemen; M Bourgeois,
the King's First Advocate in the Court of the Treasurers of France ; MM.
De Cotton father and son; and M. Boniel; who have all signed the
•riginal copy of the Declaration, along with M. Puys and Father Alby.

380 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

was the object of his esteem and affection." By virtue of
these words alone, without either retractation or absolution, M.
Puys recovered, all at once, from his apostasy, his scandals,
and his excommunication ; and Father Alby immediately
thereafter addressed him in the following express terms :
" Sir, it was in consequence of my believing that you meant
to attack the Society to which I have the honor to belong,
that I was induced to take up the pen in its defence ; and I
considered that the mode of reply which I adopted was such
us I was permitted to employ. But, on a better understand-
ing of your intention, I am now free to declare, that there is
nothing in your work to prevent me from regarding you as a
man of genius, enlightened in judgment, profound and ortho-
dox in doctrine, and irreproachable in manners ; in one word,
as a pastor worthy of your Church. It is with much pleas-
ure that I make this declaration, and I beg these gentlemen
to remember what I have now said."

They do remember it, fathers ; and, allow me to add, they
were more scandalized by the reconciliation than by the
quarrel. For who can fail to admire this speech of Father
Alby ? He does not say that he retracts, in consequence of
having learnt that a change had taken place in the faith and
manners of M. Puys, but solely because, having understood
that he had no intention of attacking your Society, there was
nothing further to prevent him from regarding the author as
a good Catholic. He did not then believe him to be actually
a heretic ! And yet, after having, contrary to his conviction,
accused him of this crime, he will not acknowledge he was
in the wrong, but has the hardihood to say, that he consid-
ered the method he adopted to be " such as he was permitted
to employ !"

What can you possibly mean, fathers, by so publicly avow-
ing the fact, that you measure the faith and the virtue of
men only by the sentiments they entertain towards your So-
ciety ? Had you no apprehension of making yourselves
pass, by your own acknowledgment, as a band of swindlers
and slanderers ? What, fathers ! must the same individual

AN ODD HERESY. 381

without undergoing any personal transformation, but simply
according as you judge him to have honored or assailed your
community, be " pious " or " impious," " irreproachable " 01
* excommunicated," " a pastor worthy of the Church," or
" worthy of the stake;" in short, " a Catholic " or " a here-
tic ?" To attack your Society and to be a heretic, are, there-
fore, in your language, convertible terms ! An odd sort of
heresy this, fathers 1 And so it would appear, that when
we see many good Catholics branded, in your writings, by
the name of heretics, it means nothing more than that you
think they attack you ! It is well, fathers, that we under-
stand tliis strange dialect, according to which there can he
no doubt that I must be a great heretic. It is in this sense,
then, that you so often favor me with this appellation !
Your sole reason for cutting me off" from the Church is, be-
cause you conceive that my letters have done you harm ; and,
accordingly, all that I have to do, in order to become a good
Catholic, is either to approve of your extravagant morality,
or to convince you that my sole aim in exposing it has been
your advantage. The former I could not do without renoun-
cing every sentiment of piety that I ever possessed ; and the
latter you will be slow to acknowledge till you are well cured
of your errors. Thus am I involved in heresy, after a very
singular fashion ; for, the purity of my faith being of no avail
tor my exculpation, I have no means of escaping from the
charge, except either by turning traitor to my own conscience,
>r by reforming yours. Till one or other of these events
lappen, I must remain a reprobate and a slanderer; and,
»et me be ever so faithful in my citations from your writings,
you will go about crying everywhere, " What an instrument
of the devil must that man be, to impute to us things of
which there is not the least mark or vestige to be found in
our books 1" And, by doing so, you will only be acting in
jonformity with your fixed maxim and your ordinary prac-
tice : to such latitude does your privilege of telling lies ex
\end 1 Allow me to give you an example of this, which I
select on purpose; it will give me an opportunity of reply

582 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

ing, at the same time, to your ninth Imposture : for, in truth,
they only deserve to be refuted in passing.

About ten or twelve years ago, you were accused of hold
ing that maxim of Father Bauny, " that it is permissible to
seek directly (primo et per se) a proximate occasion of sin,
for the spiritual or temporal good of ourselves or our neigh-
bor" (tr. 4, q. 14); as an example of which, he observes,
" It is allowable to visit infamous places, for the purpose of
converting abandoned females, even although the practice
should be very likely to lead into sin, as in the case of one
who has found from experience that he has frequently yielded
to their temptations." What answer did your Father Caus-
sin give to this charge in the year 1644 ? "Just let any one
look at the passage in Father Bauny," said he, " let him
peruse the page, the margins, the preface, the appendix, in
short, the whole book from beginning to end, and he will not
discover the slightest vestige of such a sentence, which could
only enter into the mind of a man totally devoid of con-
science, and could hardly have been forged by any other but
an instrument of Satan.'" Father Pintereau talks in the
same style : " That man must be lost to all conscience who
would teach so detestable a doctrine ; but he must be worse
than a devil who attributes it to Father Bauiiy. Reader,
there is not a single trace or vestige of it in the whole of his
book."8 Who would not believe that persons talking in
this tone have good reason to complain, and that Father
Bauny has, in very deed, been misrepresented ? Have you
ever asserted anything against me in stronger terms ? And,
after such a solemn asseveration, that " there was not a sin-
gle trace or vestige of it in the whole book," who would
unagine that the passage is to be found, word for word, in
i-he place referred to ?

Truly, fathers, if this be the means of securing your repu-
tation, so long as you remain unanswered, it is also, unfortu-
nately, the means of destroying it forever, so soon as an an-

1 Apology for the Society
3 First Part, p. 24.

of Jesus, p. 128.

BAREFACED DENIALS. 3§S

swer makes its appearance. For so certain is it that you told
a lie at the period before mentioned, that you make no scru-
ple of acknowledging, in your apologies of the present day,
that the maxim in question is to be found in the very place
which had been quoted; and what is most extraordinary, the
same maxim which, twelve years ago, was " detestable," has
now become so innocent, that in your ninth Imposture (p. 10)
you accuse me of " ignorance and malice, in quarrelling with
Father Bauny for an opinion which has not been rejected in
the School." What an advantage it is, fathers, to have to
do with people that deal in contradictions I I need not the
aid of any but yourselves to confute you; for I have only
two things to show — first, That the maxim in dispute is a
worthless one ; and, secondly, That it belongs to Father
Bauny; and I can prove both by your own confession. In
1644, you confessed that it was " detestable;" and, in 1656,
you avow that it is Father Bauny's. This double acknowl-
edgment completely justifies me, fathers ; but it does more,
it discovers the spirit of your policy. For, tell me, pray,
what is the end you propose to yourselves in your writings?
Is it to speak with honesty ? No, fathers ; that cannot be,
since your defences destroy each other. Is it to follow the
truth of the faith ? As little can this be your end ; since, ac-
cording to your own showing, you authorize a " detestable"
maxim. But, be it observed, that while you said the maxim
was " detestable," you denied, at the same time, that it was
the property of Father Bauny, and so he was innocent ; and
when you now acknowledge it to be his, you maintain, at the
same time, that it is a good maxim, and so he is innocent
still. The innocence of this monk, therefore, being the only
thing common to your two answers, it is obvious that this
was the sole end which you aimed at in putting them forth ;
and that, when you say of one and the same maxim, that it
is in a certain book, and that it is not ; that it is a good
maxim, and that it IB a bad one; your sole object is to white-
wash some one or other of your fraternity; judging in the
matter, not according to the truth, which never changes, but

884 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

according to your own interest, which is varying every hour
Can I say imre than this? You perceive that it amounts to
a demonstration ; but it is far from being a singular instance
and, to omit a multitude of examples of the same thing, I
believe you will be contented with my quoting only one
more.

You have been charged, at different times, with another
proposition of the same Father Bauny, namely, " That abso-
lution ought to be neither denied nor deferred in the case oi
those who live in the habits of sin against the law of God, of
nature, and of the Church, although there should be no ap-
parent prospect of future amendment — etsi emendationis fu-
turce spes nulla appareat"1 Now, with regard to this
maxim, I beg you to tell me, fathers, which of the apologies
that have been made for it is most to your liking ; whether
that of Father Pintereau, or that of Father Brisacier, both
of your Society, who have defended Father Bauny, in your
two different modes — the one by condemning the proposition,
but disavowing it to be Father Bauny's ; the other by allow-
ing it to be Father Bauny's, but vindicating the proposition ?
Listen, then, to their respective deliverances. Here comes
that of Father Pintereau (p. 8) : "I know not what can be
called a transgression of all the bounds of modesty, a step
beyond all ordinary impudence, if the imputation to Father
Bauny of so damnable a doctrine is not worthy of that desig-
nation. Judge, reader, of the baseness of that calumny ;
see what sort of creatures the Jesuits have to deal with ; and
say, if the author of so foul a slander does not deserve to b
regarded from henceforth as the interpreter of the father of
lies." Now for Father Brisacier : " It is true, Father Bauny
Bays what you allege." (That gives the lie direct to Father
Pintereau, plain enough.) " But," adds he, in defence of Fa-
ther Bauny, " if you who find so much fault with this sentiment,
wait, -when a penitent lies at your feet, till his guardian ange"
find security for his rights in the inheritance of heaven ; if
you wait (ill God the Father, swear by himself that David

1 Tr. 4, q 22, p. 100

FLAT CONTRADICTIONS. 3».->

told a lie, when he said, by the Holy Ghoit, that 'all men
are liars,' fallible and perfidious ; if you wait till the penitent
be no longer a liar, no longer frail and changeable, no longer
a sinner, like other men ; if you wait, I say, till then, you
will never apply the blood of Jesus Christ to a single soul.'"

What do you really think now, fathers, of these impious
and extravagant expressions '? According to them, if we
would wait " till there be some hope of amendment" in sin-
ners before granting their absolution, we must wait " till God
the Father swear by himself," that they will never fall into
sin any more ! What, fathers ! is no distinction to be made
between hope and certainty ? How injurious is it to the grace
of Jesus Christ, to maintain that it is so impossible for Chris-
tians ever to escape from crimes against the laws of God
nature, and the Church, that such a thing cannot be looked
for, without supposing " that the Holy Ghost has told a lie ;"
and if absolution is not granted to those who give no hope of
amendment, the blood of Jesus Christ will be useless, for-
sooth, and "would never be applied to a single soul!" To
what a sad pass have you come, fathers, by this extravagant
desire of upholding the glory of your authors, when you can
find only two ways of justifying them — by imposture or by
impiety ; and when the most innocent mode by which you
can extricate yourselves, is by the barefaced denial of facts as
patent as the light of day !

This may perhaps account for your having recourse so fre-
quently to that very convenient practice. But this does not
complete the sum of your accomplishments in the art of self-
defence. To render your opponents odious, you have had
recourse to the forging of documents, such as that Letter of
a Minister to M. Arnauld, which you circulated through all
Paris, to induce the belief that the work on Frequent Com-
munion, which had been approved by so many bishops and
doctors, but which, to say the truth, was rather against you,
nad been concocted through secret intelligence with the min-

» Part. 4, p. 21

386 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

isters of Charentou.1 At other times, you attribute to yom
adversaries writings full of impiety, such as the Circular
Letter of the Jansenists, the absurd style of which renders
the fraud too gross to be swallowed, and palpably betrays
the malice of your Father Meynier, who has the impudence
to make use of it for supporting his foulest slanders. Some-
times, again, you will quote books which were never in exist-
ence, such as The Constitution of the Holy Sacrament, from
which you extract passages, fabricated at pleasure, and cal-
culated to make the hair on the heads of certain good simple
people, who have no idea of the effrontery with which you
can invent and propagate falsehoods, actually to bristle with
horror. There is not, indeed, a single species of calumny
which you have not put into requisition ; nor is it possible
that the maxim which excuses the vice could have been
lodged in better hands.

But those sorts of slander to which we have adverted are
rather too easily discredited ; and, accordingly, you have oth-
ers of a more subtle character, in which you abstain from
specifying particulars, in order to preclude your opponents
from getting any hold, or finding any means of reply ; as, for
example, when Father Brisacier says that " his enemies are
guilty of abominable crimes, which he does not choose to men-
tion." Would you not think it were impossible to prove a
charge so vague as this to be a calumny ? An able man,
however, has found out the secret of it ; and it is a Capuchin
again, fathers. You are unlucky in Capuchins, as times now
go ; and I foresee that you may be equally so some other
time in Benedictines. The name of this Capuchin is Father

1 That is, the Protestant ministers of Paris, who are called I: the
ministers of Charenton," from the village of thai name near Paris, where
they had their place of worship. The Protestants of Paris were forbid-
den to hold meetings in the city, and were compelled to travel five leagues
to a place of worship, till 1606, when they were graciously permitted to
erect their temple at Charenton. about two leagues from the city ! (Be-
noit, Hist, de 1'Edit. de Nantes, i. 435.) Even there they were harassed
by the bigoted populace, and at last '• the ministers of Charenton,"
among whom were the famous Claude and Dai lie. were driven fron\
their homes, their chapel burnt to the ground, and their people scattered
abroad.

VAGUE INSINUATIONS. 387

Valerien, of the house of the Counts of Magnis. You shall
hear, by this brief narrative, how he answered your calum-
nies. He had happily succeeded in converting Prince Er-
nest, the Landgrave of Hesse Rheinsfelt.1 Your fathers,
however, seized, as it would appear, with some chagrin at
seeing a sovereign prince converted without their having had
any hand in it, immediately wrote a book against the friar
(for good men are everywhere the objects of your persecu-
tion), in which, by falsifying one of his passages, they ascribed
to him an heretical doctrine. They also circulated a lettei
against him, in which they said : " Ah, we have such things
to disclose" (without mentioning what) " as will gall you to
the quick ! If you don't take care, we shall be forced to
inform the pope and the cardinals about it." This manoeuvre
was pretty well executed ; and I doubt not, fathers, but you
may speak in the same style of me ; but take warning from
the manner in which the friar answered in his book, which
was printed last year at Prague (p. 112, <fec.) : " What shall
I do," he says, " to counteract these vague and indefinite
insinuations? How shall I refute charges which have never
been specified ? Here, however, is my plan. I declare,
loudly and publicly, to those who have threatened me, that
they are notorious slanderers, and most impudent liars, if they
do not discover these crimes before the whole world. Come
forth, then, mine accusers ! and publish your lies upon the
house tops, in place of telling them in the ear, and keeping
yourselves out of harm's way by telling them in the ear.
Some may think this a scandalous way of managing the dis-
pute. It was scandalous, I grant, to impute to me such a
crime as heresy, and to fix upon me the suspicion of many
others besides ; but, by asserting my innocence, I am merely
applying the proper remedy to the scandal already in exist-
ence."

Truly, fathers, never were your reverences more roughly
handled, and never was a poor man more completely vindi*

1 In the first edition it was said to be the Landgrave of Darmstat, by
nistake, as shown in a note by Nicole.

388 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

cated. Since you have made no reply to such a peremptory
challenge, it must be concluded that you are unable to dis-
cover the slightest shadow of criminality against him. You
have had very awkward scrapes to get through occasionally ;
but experience has made you nothing the wiser. For, some
time after this happened, you attacked the same individual
in a similar strain, upon another subject ; and he defended
himself after the same spirited manner, as follows : " This
class of men, who have become an intolerable nuisance to the
whole of Christendom, aspire, under the pretext of good
works, to dignities and domination, by perverting to their
own ends almost all laws, human and divine, natural and
revealed. They gain over to their side, by their doctrine,
by the force of fear, or of persuasion, the great ones of the
earth, whose authority they abuse for the purpose of accom-
plishing their detestable intrigues. Meanwhile their enter-
piises, criminal as they are, are neither punished nor sup-
pressed ; on the contrary, they are rewarded ; and the villains
go about them with as little fear or remorse as if they were
doing God service. Everybody is aware of the fact I have
now stated ; everybody speaks of it with execration ; but few
are found capable of opposing a despotism so powerful. This,
however, is what I have done. I have already curbed their
insolence ; and, by the same means, I shall curb it again.
I declare, then, that they are most impudent liars — MENTIRIS
IMPUDENTISSIME. If the charges they have brought against
me be true, let them prove it ; otherwise they stand convicted
of falsehood, aggravated by the grossest effrontery. Their
procedure in this case will show who has the right upon his
side. I desire all men to take a particular observation of it ;
and beg to remark, in the mean time, that this precious cabal,
who will not suffer the most trifling charge which they can
possibly repel to lie upon them, made a show of enduring,
with great patience, those from which they cannot vindicate
themselves, and conceal, under a counterfeit virtue, their real
impotency. My object, therefore, in provoking their modesty
by this sharp retort, is to let the plainest people understand

MENTIRIS IMPUDENTI8SIME. 380

that if my enemies hold their peace, their forbearance must
be ascribed, not to the meekness of their natures, but to the
power of a guilty conscience." He concludes with the fol-
lowing sentence : " These gentry, whose history is well known
throughout the whole world, are so glaringly iniquitous in
their measures, and have become so insolent in their im-.
punity, that if I did not detest their conduct, and publicly
express my detestation too, not merely for my own vindica-
tion, but to guard the simple against its seducing influence, I
must have renounced my allegiance to Jesus Christ and his
Church."

Reverend fathers, there is no room for tergiversation. You
must pass for convicted slanderers, and take comfort in your
old maxim, that calumny is no crime. This honest friar has
discovered the secret of shutting your mouths ; and it must
be employed on all occasions when you accuse people with-
out proof. We have only to reply to each slander as it ap-
pears, in the words of the Capuchin, Mentiris impudentissime
•— " You are most impudent liars." For instance, what
better answer does Father Brisacier deserve when he says
of his opponents that they are " the gates of hell ; the devil's
bishops ; persons devoid of faith, hope, and charity ; the
builders of Antichrist's exchequer ;" adding, " I say this of
him, not by way of insult, but from deep conviction of its
truth ?" Who would be at the pains to demonstrate that he
B not " a gate of hell," and that he has no concern with " the
building up of Antichrist's exchequer ?"

In like manner, what reply is due to all the vague speeches
of this sort which are to be found in your books and adver-
tisements on my letters ; such as the following, for example :
" That restitutions have been converted to private uses, and
thereby creditors have been reduced to beggary ; that bags
of money have been offered to learned monks, who declined
the bribe ; that benefices are conferred for the purpose of
disseminating heresies against the faith ; that pensioners are
<ept in the houses of the most eminent churchmen, and in
the courts of sovereigns ; that I also am a pensioner of Port-

300 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Royal : and that, before writing my letters, I had composed
romances" — I, who never read one in my life, and who do
not know so much as the names of those which your apolo-
gist has published ? What can be said in reply to all this,
fathers, if you do not mention the names of all these persons
you refer to, their words, the time, and the place, except—
Mentiris impudentissime ? You should either be silent alto-
gether, or relate and prove all the circumstances, as I did
when I told you the anecdotes of Father Alby and John
d'Alba. Otherwise, you will hurt none but yourselves.
Your numerous fables might, perhaps, have done you some
service, before your principles were known ; but now that the
whole has been brought to light, when you begin to whisper
as usual, " A man of honor, who desired us to conceal his
name, has told us some horrible stories of these same people"
— you will be cut short at once, and reminded of the Ca-
puchin's Mentiris impudentissime. Too long by far have you
been permitted to deceive the world, and to abuse the con-
fidence which men were ready to place in your calumnious
accusations. It is high time to redeem the reputation of the
multitudes whom you have defamed. For what innocence
can be so generally known, as not to suffer some injury from
the daring aspersions of a body of men scattered over the
face of the earth, and who, under religious habits, conceal
minds so utterly irreligious, that they perpetrate crimes like
calumny, not in opposition to, but in strict accordance with,
their moral maxims ? I cannot, therefore, be blamed for
destroying the credit which might have been awarded you •
seeing it must be allowed to be a much greater act of justL«
to restore to the victims of your obloquy the character which
they did not deserve to lose, than to leave you in the posses-
sion of a reputation for sincerity which you do not deserve to
enjoy. And as the one could not be done without the other,
how important was it to show you up to the world as you
-eally are ! In this letter I have commenced the exhibition ;
but it will require some time to complete it. Published it
nhall be, fathers, and all your policy will be inadequate to

THREAT OF FUTURE DISCOVERIES. 391

save you from the disgrace ; for the efforts whicli you may
make to avert the blow, will only serve to convince the most
obtuse observers that you were terrified out of your wits,
and that, your consciences anticipating the charges I had to
bring against you, you have put every oar in the water to
prevent the discover^

LETTER XV,.

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS.

•HAMEFUL CALUMNIES OF THE JESUITS AGAINST PIOUS CLERGYME*
AND INNOCENT NUNS.

December 4, 1656.

REVEREND FATHERS, — I now come to consider the rest of
your calumnies, and shall begin with those contained in your
advertisements, which remain to be noticed. As all your
other writings, however, are equally well stocked with slander,
they will furnish me with abundant materials for entertaining
you on this topic as long as I may judge expedient. In the
first place, then, with regard to the fable which you have
propagated in all your writings against the Bishop of Ypres,2
I beg leave to say, in one word, that you have maliciously
wrested the meaning of some ambiguous expressions in one
of his letters, which being capable of a good sense, ought,
according to the spirit of the Gospel, to have been taken in
good part, and could only be taken otherwise according to
the spirit of your Society. For example, when he says to a
friend, " Give yourself no concern about your nephew ; I
will furnish him with what he requires from the money that
lies in my hands," what reason have you to interpret this to
mean, that he would take that money without restoring it,
Bnd not that he merely advanced it with the purpose of re-
placing it ? And how extremely imprudent was it for you to

1 The plan and materials of this letter were furnished by M. Nicole
, Nicole, iv. 243.)

2 Jansenius, who was made Bishop of Ipres or Ypres. in 1636. The
•etters to which Pascal refers were printed at that time by the Jesuits
themselves, who retained the originals in their possession ; these having
come into their hands in consequence of the arrest of M. De St. Cyran

CALUMNIES AGAINST PORT-ROYAL. 393

furnish a refutation of your own lie, by printing the other
letters of ihe Bishop of Ypres, which clearly show that, in
point of fact, it was merely advanced money, which he was
bound to refund. This appears, to your confusion, from the
following terms in the letter, to which you give the date of
July 30, 1619: " Be not uneasy about the mrney advanced ,
he shall want for nothing so long as he is here ;" and like-
wise from another, dated January 6, 1620, where he says:
'* You are in too great haste ; when the account shall become
due, I have no fear but that the little credit which I have in
this place will bring me as much money as I require."

If you are convicted slanderers on this subject, you are
no less so in regard to the ridiculous story about the charity-
box of St. Merri. What advantage, pray, can you hope to
derive from the accusation which one of your worthy friends
has trumped up against that ecclesiastic ? Are we to con-
clude that a man is guilty, because he is accused ? No, fa-
thers. Men of piety, like him, may expect to be perpetually
accused, so long as the world contains calumniators like you.
We must judge of him, therefore, not from the accusation,
but from the sentence ; and the sentence pronounced on the
v.»ase (February 23, 1656) justifies him completely. More-
over, the person who had the temerity to involve himself in
that iniquitous process, was disavowed by his colleagues, and
himself compelled to retract his charge. And as to what
you allege, in the same place, about " that famous director,
who pocketed at once nine hundred thousand livres," I need
only refer you to Messieurs the cures of St. Roch and St.
Paul, who will bear witness, before the whole city of Paris,
to his perfect disinterestedness in the affair, and to your in-
excusable malice in that piece of imposition.

Enough, however, for such paltry falsities. These are but
the first raw attempts of your novices, and not the master-
strokes of your "grand professed."1 To these do I now
tome, fathers ; I come to a calumny which is certainly one

1 The Jesuits must pass through t. long novitiate, before they are ad
wiitted as "professed" memners of the Society.

17*

394 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

of the basest that ever issued from the spirit of your Society.
I refer to the insufferable audacity with which you have im-
puted to holy nuns, and to their directors, the charge of
" disbelieving the mystery of transubstantiation, and the real
presence of Jesus Christ in the eucharist." Here, fathers,
is a slander worthy of yourselves. Here is a crime which
God alone is capable of punishing, as you alone were capa-
ble of committing it. To endure it with patience, would re-
quire an humility as great as that of these calumniated la-
dies ; to give it credit would demand a degree of wickedness
equal to that of their wretched defamers. I propose not,
therefore, to vindicate them ; they are beyond suspicion.
Had they stood in need of defence, they might have com-
manded abler advocates than me. My object in what I say
here is to show, not their innocence, but your malignity. I
merely intend to make you ashamed of yourselves, and to let
the whole world understand that, after this, there is nothing
of which you are not capable.

You will not fail, I am certain, notwithstanding all this, to
say that I belong to Port-Royal ; for this is the first thing
you say to every one who combats your errors : as if it were
only at Port-Royal that persons could be found possessed of
sufficient zeal to defend, against your attacks, the purity of
Christian morality. I know, fathers, the work of the pious
recluses who have retired to that monastery, and how much
the Church is indebted to their truly solid and edifying la-
bors. I know the excellence of their piety and their learning.
For, though I have never had the honor to belong to their
establishment, as you, without knowing who or what I am,
would fain have it believed, nevertheless, I do know some of
them, and honor the virtue of them all. But God has not
Confined within the precincts of that society all whom he
Jieans to raise up in opposition to your corruptions. 1 hope,
with his assistance, fathers, to make you feel this ; and if he
vouchsafe to sustain me in the design he has led me to form,
of employing in his service all the resources I have received
from him, I shall speak to you in such a strain as will, per-

CALUMNIES AGAINST PORT-ROYAL. 39$

baps, give you reason to regret that you have not had to do
with a man of Port-Royal. And to convince you of this,
fathers, 1 must tell you that, while those whom you have
abused with this notorious slander content themselves with
lifting up their groans to Heaven to obtain your forgiveness
for the outrage, I feel myself obliged, not being in the least
affected by your slander, to make you blush in the face of
the whole Church, and so bring you to that wholesome
shame of which the Scripture speaks, and which is almost
the only remedy for a hardness of heart like yours : " Imple
fades eorum ignominid, et queer ent nomen tuum, Domine —
Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name,
0 Lord."1

A stop must be put to this insolence, which does not spare
the most sacred retreats. For who can be safe after a cal-
umny of this nature ? For shame, fathers ! to publish
in Paris such a scandalous book, with the name of your
Father Meynier on its front, and under this infamous title,
" Port-Royal and Geneva in concert against the most holy
Sacrajnent of the Altar," in which you accuse of this apos-
tasy, not only Monsieur the abbe of St. Cyran, and M. Ar-
nauld, but also Mother Agnes, his sister, and all the nuns of
that monastery, alleging that " their faith, in regard to the
eucharist, is as suspicious as that of M. Arnauld," whom you
maintain to be " a downright Calvinist."2 I here ask the
whole world if there be any class of persons within the pale
of the Church, on whom you could have advanced such an
abominable charge with less semblance of truth. For tell
me, fathers, if these nuns and their directors, had been "in
concert with Geneva against the most holy sacrament of the
altar " (the very thought of which is shocking), how they
vhould have come to select as the principal object of their
piety that very sacrament which they held in abomination ?
How should they have assumed the habit of the holy sacra-
Vnent ? taken the name of the Daughters of the Holy Sacra-
ment ? called their church the Church of the Holy Sacra-

l Ps. Ixxxiii. 16. 2 Pp. 96. 4

396 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

ment ? How should they have requested and obtained from
Rome the confirmation of that institution, and the right of
saying every Thursday the office of the holy sacrament, in
which the faith of the Church is so perfectly expressed, if
they had conspired with Geneva to banish that faith from
the Church ? Why would they have bound themselves, by
a particular devotion, also sanctioned by the pope, to have
some of their sisterhood, night and day without intermission,
in presence of the sacred host, to compensate, by their per-
petual adorations towards that perpetual sacrifice, for the
impiety of the heresy that aims at its annihilation ? Tell me,
fathers, if you can, why, of all the mysteries of our religion,
they should have passed by those in which they believed,
to fix upon that in which they believed not ? and how they
should have devoted themselves, so fully and entirely, to
that mystery of our faith, if they took it, as the heretics do,
for the mystery of iniquity ? And what answer do you give
to these clear evidences, embodied not in words only, but in
actions ; and not in some particular actions, but in the whole
tenor of a life expressly dedicated to the adoration of Jesus
Christ, dwelling on our altars ? What answer, again, do
you give to the books which you ascribe to Port-Royal, ail
of which are full of the most precise terms employed by the
fathers and the councils to mark the essence of that mystery ?
It is at once ridiculous and disgusting to hear you replying
to these, as you have done throughout your libel. M. Ar-
nauld, say you, talks very well about transubstantiation ; but
he understands, perhaps, only "a significative transubstan-
tiation." True, he professes to believe in " the real pres-
ence ;" who can tell, however, but he means nothing more
than " a true and real figure ?" How now, fathers ! whom,

pray, will you not make pass for a Calvinist whenever you
please, if you are to be allowed the liberty of perverting the
most canonical and sacred expressions by the wicked subtil-
ties of your modern equivocations ? Who ever thought of
using any other terms than those in question, especially in
simple discourses of devotion, where no controversies art

PORT-ROYALISTS NO HERETICS. 397

handled ? And yet the love and the reverence in which
they hold this sacred mystery, have induced them to give it
such a prominence in all their writings, that I defy you, fa-
thers, with all your cunning, to detect in them either the
least appearance of ambiguity, or the slightest correspond
ence with the sentiments of Geneva.

Everybody knows, fathers, that the essence of (he Genevan
heresy consists, as it does according to your own showing, in
their believing that Jesus Christ is not contained (enferme),
in this sacrament ; that it is impossible he can be in many
places at once ; that he is, properly speaking, only in heaven,
and that it is as there alone that he ought to be adored, and
not on the altar;1 that the substance of the bread remains ;
that the body of Jesus Christ does not enter into the mouth
or the stomach ; that he can only be eaten by faith, and
accordingly wicked men do not eat him at all ; and that the
mass is not a sacrifice, but an abomination. Let us now hear,
then, in what way " Port-Royal is in concert with Geneva."
In the writings of the former we read, to your confusion, the
following statement : That " the flesh and blood of Jesus
Christ arc contained under the species of bread and wine ;"*
that " the Holy of Holies is present in the sanctuary, and
that there he ought to be adored ;"3 that " Jesus Christ
dwells in the pinners who communicate, by the real and veri-
table presence of his body in their stomach, although not by

1 It is hardly necessary to observe, that in this passage the Protestan
faith on the supper is not fairly represented. The Reformers did not deny
that Christ was really present in that sacrament. They held that he
was present spiritually, though not corporeally. Some of them ex-
pressed themselves strongly in opposition to those who spoke of the sup-
per as a mere or bare sign. Calvin says : " There are two things in
the sacrament — corporeal symbols, by which things invisible are pro-
posed to the senses: and a spiritual truth which is represented and
sealed by the symbols. In the mystery of the supper. Christ is truly
exhibited to us and therefore his body and blood." (Inst.. lib. iv.. cap.
17. 11.) "The body of Chriet." says Peter Martyr (Loc. Com., iv. 10),
•' is not substantially present anywhere but in heaven. I do not, how-
ever deny that his true body anil true blood, which were offered for hu-
man redemption on the cross, are spiritually partaken of by believers in
he holy supper." This is the general sentiment of Protestant divines
De Moor, in Marck, Compend. Theol.. p. v. 679, &c.)

a Second letter of M. Arnauld: p. 259. * Ibid., p. 243.

398 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

the presence of his Spirit in their hearts ;'" that " the dead
ashes of the bodies of the saints derive their principal dignity
from that seed of life which they retain from the touch of
the immortal and vivifying flesh of Jesus Christ ;"* that " it
is not owing to any natural power, but to the almighty
power of God, to whom nothing is impossible, that the body
of Jesus Christ is comprehended under the host, and under
the smallest portion of every host ;"3 that " the divine virtue
is present to produce the effect which the words of conse-
cration signify;"4 that "Jesus Christ, while he is lowered
(rabaisse), and hidden upon the altar, is, at the same time,
elevated in his glory ; that he subsists, of himself and by his
own ordinary power, in divers places at the same time — in
the midst of the Church triumphant, and in tne midst of the
Church militant and travelling ;"* that " the sacramental
species remain suspended, and subsist extraordinarily, with-
out being upheld by any subject ; and that the body of
Jesus Christ is also suspended under the species, and that it
does not depend upon these, as substances depend upon
accidents ;"6 that " the substance of the bread is changed,
the immutable accidents remaining the same ;" 7 that " Jesus
Christ reposes in the eucharist with the same glory that he
has in heaven ;" 8 that " his glorious humanity resides in
the tabernacles of the Church, under the species of bread,
which forms its visible covering ; and that, knowing the
grossness of our natures, he conducts us to the adoration of
his divinity, which is present in all places, by the adoring of
his humanity, which is present in a particular place ;"9 tha
" we receive the body of Jesus Christ upon the tongue,
which is sanctified by its divine touch ;"lc " that it enters
into the mouth of the priest;"" that " although Jesus Christ

1 Frequent Communion, 3d part, ch. 16. Poitrinc — that is, the
bodily breast or stomach, in opposition to caeui — the heart or soul.
» Ibid.. 1st part. ch. 40.

1 Theolog. Fam., lee. 15. a Ibid.

* De la Suspension. Rais. 21. ' Ibid., p. 23.

i H^urs of the Holy Sacrament, in Prose.

8 Letters of M. de St. Cyan, torn, i., let. 93. 10 Ibid.

9 Letter 32. u Letter TV.

PORT-ROYALISTS NO HERETICS. 399

has made himself accessible in the holy sacrament, by an act
of his love and graciousness, he preserves, nevertheless, in
that ordinance, his inaccessibility, as an inseparable condition
of his divine nature ; because, although the body alone and
the blood alone are there, by virtue of the words vi verborum,
as the schoolmen say, his whole divinity may, notwithstand-
ing, be there also, as well as his whole humanity, by a neces
sary conjunction."1 In fine, that "the eucharist is at the
same time sacrament and sacrifice ;"2 and that " although
this sacrifice is a commemoration of that of the cross, yet
there is this difference between them, that the sacrifice of the
mass is offered for the Church only, and for the faithful in
her communion ; whereas that of the cross has been offered
for all the world, as the Scripture testifies."3

I have quoted enough, fathers, to make it evident that
there was never, perhaps, a more imprudent thing attempted
than what you have done. But I will go a step farther, and
make you pronounce this sentence against yourselves. For
what do you require from a man, in order to remove all sus-
picion of his being in concert and correspondence with
Genevi? ? '- If M. Arnauld," says your Father Meynier,
p. 93, " had said that in this adorable mystery, there is no
substance of the bread under the species, but only the flesh
and the blood of Jesus Christ, I should have confessed that
he had declared himself absolutely against Geneva." Con-
fess it, then, ye revilers ! and make him a public apology.
How often have you seen this declaration made in the pas-
sages I have just cited ? Besides this, however, the Famil-
iar Theology of M. de St. Cyran having been approved by
M. Arnauld, it contains the sentiments of both. Read,
then, the whole of lesson 15th, and particularly article 2d,
and you will there find the words you desiderate, even
more formally stated than you have done yourselves. " Is
there any bread in the host, or any wine in the chalioe ?
No : for all the substance of the bread and the wine

1 Defence of the Chaplet of the H. Sacrament, p. 217.
1 Theol. Famil, lee. 15. » Ihd., p. 153

400 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

s taken away, to give place to that of the body and
blood of Jesus Christ, the which substance alone remains
therein, covered by the qualities and species of bread and
wine."

How now, fathers! will you still say that Port-Royal
teaches "nothing that Geneva does not receive," and that
M. Arnauld has said nothing in his second letter " which
might not have been said by a minister of Charenton ?" See
if you can persuade Mestrezat1 to speak as M. Arnauld doef
in that letter, at page 237 ? Make him say, that it is an in-
famous calumny to accuse him of denying transubstantiation ;
that he takes for the fundamental principle of his writings the
truth of the real presence of the Son of God, in opposition to
the heresy of the Calvinists ; and that he accounts himself
happy for living in a place where the Holy of Holies is con-
tinually adored in the sanctuary" — a sentiment which is still
more opposed to the belief of the Calvinists than the real pres-
ence itself; for as Cardinal Richelieu observes in his Contro-
versies (p. 536) : " The new ministers of France having agreed
with the Lutherans, who believe the real presence of Jesus
Christ in the eucharist ; they have declared that they remain
in a state of separation from the Church on the point of this
mystery, only on account of the adoration which Catholics
render to the eucharist."2 Get all the passages which I have
extracted from the books of Port- Royal subscribed at Genera,

1 John Mestrezat, Protestant minister of Paris, was born at Geneva
n 1592, and died in May 1657. His Sermons on the Epistle to the He
orews, and other discourses, published after his death, are truly excellent.
This learned and eloquent divine frequently engaged in controversy with
the Romanists, and on one occasion managed the debate with such sjpirit
'hat Cardinal Richelieu, taking hold of his shoulder, exclaimed : •' This
is the boldest minister in France." ( Bayle, Diet., art. Mestrezat.)

2 The statement of the Protestant faith, given in a preceding note,
may suffice to show that it differs, toto ccelo, from that of Koine, as this
is explained in the text. The leading fallacy of the Romish creed on
this subject is the monstrous dogma of transubstantiation ; the adoration
of the host is merely a corollary. Calvinists and Lutherans, though
differing in their views of the ordinance, always agreed in acknowledg-
ing the real presence of Christ in the eucharist, though they consider tht
tense in which Romanists interpret that term to be chargeable with blas-
phemy and absurdity.

PORT-ROYALISTS NO HERETICS. 401

and not the isolated passages merely, but the entire treatises
regarding this mystery, such as the Book of Frequent Com-
munion, the Explication of the Ceremonies of the Mass, the
Exercise during Mass, the Reasons of the Suspension of the
Holy Sacrament, the Translation of the Hymns in the Hours
of Port-Royal, &c.; in one word, prevail upon them to estab-
lish at Charenton that holy institution of adoring, without
intermission, Jesus Christ contained in the eucharist, as is
done at Port-Royal, and it will be the most signal service
which you could render to the Church ; for in this case it
will turn out, not that Port-Royal is in concert with Geneva,
but that Geneva is in concert with Port-Royal, and with the
whole Church.

Certainly, fathers, you could not have been more unfor-
tunate than in selecting Port-Royal as the object of attack
for not believing in the eucharist ; but I will show what led
you to fix upon it. You know I have picked up some small
acquaintance with your policy ; in this instance you have
acted upon its maxims to admiration. If Monsieur the abbe
of St. Cyran, and M. Arnauld, had only spoken of what
ought to be believed with great respect to this mystery, and
said nothing about what ought to be done in the way of
preparation for its reception, they might have been the best
Catholics alive ; and no equivocations would have been dis-
covered in their use of the terms " real presence" and " tran-
Bubstantiation." But since all who combat your licentious
principles must needs be heretics, and heretics too, in the
very point in which they condemn your laxity, how could
M. Arnauld escape falling under this charge on the subject
of the eucharist, after having published a book expressly
against your profanations of that sacrament ? What ! must
?e be allowed to say, with impunity, that " the body of Jesus
Christ ought not to be given to those who habitually lapse
into the same crimes, and who have no prospect of amend-
ment ; and that such persons ought to be excluded, for some
time, from the altar, to purify themselves by sincere pen-
itence, that they may approach it afterwards with benefit ?"

402 PROVINCIAL LETTERB.

Suffer no one to talk in this strain, fathers, jr you will find
that fewer people will come to your confessionals. Father
Brisacier says, that " were you to adopt this course, you
would never apply the blood of Jesus Christ to a single in-
dividual." It would be infinitely more for your interest were
every one to adopt the views of your Society, as set forth by
your Father Mascarenhas, in a book approved by your doc-
tors, and even by your reverend Father- General, namely,
"That persons of every description, and even priests, may
receive the body of Jesus Christ on the very day they have
polluted themselves witli odious crimes ; that so far from
such communions implying irreverence, persons who partake
of them in this manner act a commendable part ; that con-
fessors ought not to keep them back from the ordinance, but,
on the contrary, ought to advise those who have recently
committed such crimes to communicate immediately ; be-
cause, although the Church has forbidden it, this prohibition
is annulled by the universal practice in all places of the
earth."1

See what it is, fathers, to have Jesuits in all places of the
earth ! Behold the universal practice which you have intro-
duced, and which you are anxious everywhere to maintain !
It matters nothing that the tables of Jesus Christ are filled
with abominations, provided that your churches are crowded
with people. Be sure, therefore, cost what it may, to set
down all that dare to say a word against your practice, as
heretics on the holy sacrament. But how can you do this,
after the irrefragable testimonies which they have given of
their faith ? Are you not afraid of my coming out with the
four grand proofs of their heresy which you have adduced ?
You ought, at least, to be so, fathers, and I ought not to
spare your blushing. Let us, then, proceed to examine
proof the first.

" M. dc St. Cyran," says Father Meynier, " consoling one
of his friends upon the death of his mother (torn, i., let. 14)
lays that the most acceptable sacrifice that can be offered up
1 Mascar., tr. 4, disp. 5, n. 284.

PORT-ROYALISTS NO HERETICS. 403

lo God on such occasions, is that of patience ; therefore he
is a Calvinist." This is marvellously shrewd reasoning, fa-
thers ; and I doubt if anybody will be able to discover the
precise point of it. Let us learn it, then, from his own
mouth. " Because," says this mighty controversialist, " it is
obvious that he does not believe in the sacrifice of the mass;
for this is, of all other sacrifices, the most acceptable unto
God." Who will venture to say now that the Jesuits do not
know how to reason ? Why, they know the art to such per-
fection, that they will extract heresy out of anything you
choose to mention, not even excepting the Holy Scripture
itself! For example, might it not be heretical to say, with
the wise man in Ecclesiasticus, " There is nothing worse than
to love money;"1 as if adultery, murder, or idolatry, were
not far greater crimes ? Where is the man who is not in the
habit of using similar expressions every day ? May we not
say, for instance, that the most acceptable of all sacrifices in
the eyes of God is that of a contrite and humbled heart ; just
because, in discourses of this nature, we simply mean to com-
pare certain internal virtues with one another, and not with
the sacrifice of the mass, which is of a totally different order,
and infinitely more exalted ? Is this not enough to make you
ridiculous, fathers ? And is it necessary, to complete your
discomfiture, that I should quote the passages of that letter
in which M. de St. Cyran speaks of the sacrifice of the mass,
as " the most excellent" of all others, in the following terms ?
" Let there be presented to God, daily and in all places, the
acrifice of the body of his Son, who could not find a mart
excellent way than that by which he might honor his Fa-
ther." And afterwards : "Jesus Christ has enjoined us to
take, when we are dying, his sacrificed body, to render more
acceptable to God the sacrifice of our own, and to join him-
self with us at the hour of dissolution ; to the end that he
may strengthen us for the struggle, sanctifying, by his pres-
ence, the last sacrifice which we make to God of our life and
aur body ?" Pretend to take no notice of all this, fathers, and

1 Ecclesiasticus (Apocrypha).

404 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

persist in maintaining, as you do in page 39, that he refused
to take the communion on his death-bed, and that he did not
believe in the sacrifice of the mass. Nothing can be too gross
for calumniators by profession.

Your second proof furnishes an excellent illustration of this.
To make a Calvinist of M. de St. Cyran, to whom you ascribe
the book of Petrus Aurelius, you take advantage of a pas-
sage (page 80) in which Aurelius explains in what manner
the Church acts towards priests, and even bishops, whom she
wishes to degrade or depose. "The Church," he says, "be-
ing incapable of depriving them of the power of the order,
the character of which is indelible, she does all that she can
do ; — she banishes from her memory the character which she
cannot banish from the souls of the individuals who have been
once invested with it ; she regards them in the same light as
if they were not bishops or priests ; so that, according to the
ordinary language of the Church, it may be said they are no
longer such, although they always remain such, in as far as
the character is concerned — ob indehbilitatem characterise
You perceive, fathers, that this author, who has been ap-
proved by three general assemblies of the clergy of France,
plainly declares that the character of the priesthood is indel-
ible ; and yet you make him say, on the contrary, in the very
same passage, that " the character of the priesthood is not
indelible." This is what I would call a notorious slander ; in
other words, according to your nomenclature, a small venial
sin. And the reason is, this book has done you some harm,
by refuting the heresies of your brethren in England touch-
ing the Episcopal authority. But the folly of the charge is
equally remarkable ; for, after having taken it for granted,
without any foundation, that M. de St. Cyran holds the
priestly character to be not indelible, you conclude from this
that he does not believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ
in the eucharist.

Do not expect me to answer this, fathers. If you have
got no common sense, I am not able to furnish you with it.
A.11 who possess any share of it will enjoy a hearty laueh at

PORT-ROYALISTS NO HERETICS. 405

your expense. Nor will they treat with greater respect your
third proof, which rests upon the following words, taken frcm
the Book of Frequent Communion : " In the eucharist God
vouchsafes us the same food that he bestows on the saints, in
heaven, with this difference only, that here he withholds from
us its sensible sight and taste, reserving both of these for the
heavenly world.'" These words express the sense of the
Church so distinctly, that I am constantly forgetting what
reason you have for picking a quarrel with them, in order to
turn them to a bad use ; for I can see nothing more in them
lhan what the Council of Trent teaches (sess. xiii., c. 8),
namely, that there is no difference between Jesus Christ in
the eucharist and Jesus Christ in heaven, except that here he
is veiled, and there he is not. M. Arnauld does not say that
there is no difference in the manner of receiving Jesus Christ,
but only that there is no difference in Jesus Christ who is re-
ceived. And yet you would, in the face of all reason, inter-
pret his language in this passage to mean, that Jesus Christ
is no more eaten with the mouth in this world than he is in
heaven ; upon which you ground the charge of heresy against
him.

You really make me sorry for you, fathers. Must we ex-
plain this further to you ? Why do you confound that divine
nourishment with the manner of receiving it ? There is but
one point of difference, as I have just observed, betwixt that
nourishment upon earth and in heaven, which is, that here it
is hidden under veils which deprive us of its sensible sight
and taste ; but there are various points of dissimilarity in the
manner of receiving it here and there, the principal of which
is. as M Arnauld expresses it (p. 3, ch. 16), "that here it en-
te -s into the mouth and the breast both of the good and of
the wicked," which is not the case in heaven.

And if you require to be told the reason of this diversity,
I may inform you, fathers, that the cause of God's ordaining
these different modes of receiving the same food, is the dif-
ference that exists betwixt the state of Christians in this life
1 Freq. Com., 3 part ch. 11.

406 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

and that of the blessed in heaven. The state of the Chris-
tian, as Cardinal Perron observes after the fathers, holds a
middle place between the state of the blessed and the state
of the Jews. The spirits in bliss possess Jesus Christ really,
without veil or figure. The Jews possessed Jesus Christ
only in figures and veils, such as the manna and the paschal
lamb. And Christians possess Jesus Christ in the euchariat
really and truly, although still concealed under veils. " God,"
says St. Eucher, "has made three tabernacles — the syna-
gogue, which had the shadows only, without the truth ; the
Church, which has the truth and shadows together ; and
heaven, where there is no shadow, but the truth alone." It
would be a departure from our present state, which is the
state of faith, opposed by St. Paul alike to the law and to
open vision, did we possess the figures only, without Jesus
Christ ; for it is the property of the law to have the mere
figure, and not the substance of things. And it would be
equally a departure from our present state if we possessed
him visibly ; because faith, according to the same apostle,
deals not with things that are seen. And thus the eucharist,
from its including Jesus Christ truly, though under a veil is
in perfect accordance with our state of faith. It follows,
that this state would be destroyed, if, as the heretics main-
tain, Jesus Christ were not really under the species of bread
and wine ; and it would be equally destroyed if we received
him openly, as they do in heaven : since, on these supposi-
tions, our state would be confounded, either with the state of
Judaism or with that of glory.

Such, fathers, is the mysterious and divine reason of this
most divine mystery. This it is that fills us with abhorrence
at the Calvinists, who would reduce us to the condition of
the Jews ; and this it is that makes us aspire to the glory of
the beatified, where we shall be introduced to the full and
eternal enjoyment of Jesus Christ. From hence you must
see that there are several points of difference between the
manner in which he communicates himself to Christians and
*o the blessed ; and that, amongst others, he is in this world

PORT-ROYALISTS NO HERETICS. 407

received by the mouth, and not so in heaven ; but that they
all depend solely on the distinction between our state of faith
and their state of immediate vision. And this is precisely,
fathers, what M. Arnauld has expressed, with great plainness,
in ;he following terms : " There can be no other difference
between the purity of those who receive Jesus Christ in the
e.icharist and that of the blessed, than what exists between
faith and the open vision of God, upon which alone depends
the different manner in which he is eaten upon earth and in
heaven." You were bound in duty, fathers, to have revered
in these words the sacred truths they express, instead of
wresting them for the purpose of detecting an heretical mean-
ing which they never contained, nor could possibly contain,
namely, that Jesus Christ is eaten by faith only, and not
by the mouth ; the malicious perversion of your Fathers
Annat and Meynier, which forms the capital count of their
indictment.

Conscious, however, of the wretched deficiency of your
proofs, you have had recourse to a new artifice, which is noth-
ing less than to falsify the Council of Trent, in order to
convict M. Arnauld of nonconformity with it ; so vast is your
store of methods for making people heretics. This feat has
been achieved by Father Meynier, in fifty different places of
his book, and about eight or ten times in the space of a sin-
gle page (the 54th), wherein he insists that to speak like a
true Catholic, it is not enough to say, " I believe that Jesus
Christ is really present in the eucharist," but we must say,
" I believe, with the council, that he is present by a true
local pretence, or locally." And in proof of this, he cites the
council, session xiii., canon 3d, canon 4th, and canon 6th.
Who would not suppose, upon seeing the term local presence
quoted from three canons of a universal council, that the
phrase was actually to be found in them ? This might have
served your turn very well, before the appearance of my
fifteenth letter ; but as matters now stand, fathers, the trick
has become too stale for us. We go our way and consult
ihe council, and discover only that you are falsifiers. SucV

*08 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

terms as local presence, locally, and locality, never existed in
the passages to which you refer ; and let me tell you further,
they are not to be found in any other canon of that council,
nor in any other previous council, nor in any father of the
Church. Allow me, then, to ask you, fathers, if you rn^m
to cast the suspicion of Calvinism upon all that have ii-jt
made use of that peculiar phrase ? If this be the case, the
Council of Trent must be suspected of heresy, and all the
holy fathers without exception. Have you no other way
of making M. Arnauld heretical, without abusing so many
other people who never did you any harm, and among the
rest, St. Thomas, who is one of the greatest champions of the
eucharist, and who, so far from employing that term, has ex-
pressly rejected it — " Nullo modo corpus Christi est in hoc
Sacramento localiter? — By no means is the body of Christ in
this sacrament locally ?" Who are you, then, fathers, to
pretend, on your authority, to impose new terms, and ordain
them to be used by all for rightly expressing their faith ; as
if the profession of the faith, drawn up by the popes accord-
ing to the plan of the council, in which this terra has no
place, were defective, and left an ambiguity in the creed of
the faithful, which you had the sole merit of discovering ?
Such a piece of arrogance, to prescribe these terms, even to
learned doctors ! such a piece of forgery, to attribute them
to general councils ! and such ignorance, not to know the ob-
jections which the most enlightened saints have made to their
reception ! " Be ashamed of the error of your ignorance,"1
as the Scripture says of ignorant impostors like you — De
mendacio ineruditionis luce confundere,

Give up all further attempts, then, to act the masters;
you have neither character nor capacity for the part. If,
however, you would bring forward your propositions with
a little more modesty, they might obtain a hearing. For
although this phrase, local presence, has been rejected, us
you have seen, by St. Thomas, on the ground that the bod v
if Jesus Christ is not in the eucharist, in the ordinary exten-
1 Eccles. iv. 25 (Apocrypha).

SLANDERS AGAINST PORT-ROYAL. 409

Bion of bodies in their places, the expression has, neverthe-
less, been adopted by some modern controversial writers, who
understand it simply to mean that the body of Jesus Christ
is truly under the species, which being in a particular place,
the body of Jesus Christ is there also. And in this sense M.
Arnauld will make no scruple to admit the term, as M. de
St. Cyran ' and he have repeatedly declared that Jesus Christ
in the eucharist is truly in a particular place, and miraculous! y
in many places at the same time. Thus all your subtleties
fd.ll to the ground ; and you have failed to give the slightest
semblance of plausibility to an accusation, which ought not to
have been allowed to show its face, without being supported
by the most unanswerable proofs.

But what avails it, fathers, to oppose their innocence to
your calumnies ? You impute these errors to them, not in
the belief that they maintain heresy, but from the idea that
they have done you injury. That is enough, according to
your theology, to warrant you to calumniate them without
criminality ; and you can, without either penance or confes-
sion, say mass, at the very time that you charge priests, who
say it every day, with holding it to be pure idolatry ; which,
were it true, would amount to sacrilege no less revolting than
that of your own Father Jarrige, whom you yourselves or-
dered to be hanged in effigy, for having said mass " at the
time he was in agreement with Geneva."1

What surprises me, therefore, is not the little scrupulosity
with which you load them with crimes of the foulest and
falsest description, but the little prudence you display, by fix-
ing on them charges so destitute of plausibility. You dispose

1 Jean du Verger de Hauranne, the Abbe de Saint Cyran. was born
at Bayonne in 1581. He was the intimate friend of Jansenius. and a
man of great piety and talents, but was seized as a heretic, and thrown
by Cardinal Richelieu into the dungeon of Vincennes. After five years'
imprisonment he was released, but died shortly after. October, 11. 1643.
By his followers, M. de Saint Cyran was reverenced as a saint and a
martyr.

'' This Father Jarrige was a famous Jesuit, who became a Protcs-
tent, and published, after his separation from Eome, a book, entitled
" Le Jesuile sur VEchaffaut — The Jesuit on the Scaffold,'' in which he
treats his old friends with no mercy.

410

PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

of sins, it is true, at your pleasure ; but do you mean to dis-
pose of men's beliefs too ? Verily, fathers, if the suspicion
of Calvinism must needs fall either on them or on you, you
would stand, I fear, on very ticklish ground. Their language
is as Catholic as yours ; but their conduct confirms their
faith, and your conduct belies it. For if you believe, as well
as they do, that the bread is really changed into the body of
Jesus Christ, why do you not require, as they do, from those
whom you advise to approach the altar, that the heart of
stone and ice should be sincerely changed into a heart of
flesh and of love ? If you believe that Jesus Christ is in that
sacrament in a state of death, teaching those that approach
it to die to the world, to sin, and to themselves, why do you
suffer those to profane it in whose breasts evil passions con-
tinue to reign in all their life and vigor ? And how do you
come to judge those worthy to eat the bread of heaven, who
are not worthy to eat that of earth ?

Precious votaries, truly, whose zeal is expended in perse-
cuting those who honor this sacred mystery by so many holy
communions, and in flattering those who dishonor it by so many
sacrilegious desecrations ! How comely is it in these cham-
pions of a sacrifice so pure and so venerable, to collect around
the table of Jesus Christ a crowd of hardened profligates,
reeking from their debaucheries ; and to plant in the midst
of them a priest, whom his own confessor has hurried from
his obscenities to the altar ; there, in the place of Jesus Christ,
to offer up that most holy victim to the God of holiness, and
convey it, with his polluted hands, into mouths as thoroughly
polluted as his own ! How well does it become those who
pursue this course " in all parts of the world," in conformity
with maxims sanclioned by their own general, to impute to the
author of Frequent Communion, and to the Sisters of the Holy
Sacrament, the crime of not believing in that sacrament !

Even this, however, does not satisfy them. Nothing less
will satiate their rage than to accuse their opponents of hav-
ing renounced Jesus Christ and their baptism. This is no
wr-built fable, like those of your invention ; it is a fact, am.

SLANDERS AGAINST PORT-ROrAL. 411

denotes a delirious frenzy, which marks the fatal consumma-
tion of your calumnies. Such a notorious falsehood as this
would not have been in hands worthy to support it, had it
remained in those of your good friend Filleau, through whom
you ushered it into the world : your Society has openly
adopted it ; and your Father Meynier maintained it the other
day to be " a certain truth," that Port-Royal has, for the
space of thirty-five years, been forming a secret plot, of
which M. de St. Cyian and M. D'Ypres have been the ring-
leaders, " to ruin the mystery of the incarnation — to make
the Gospel pass for an apocryphal fable — to exterminate the
Chiistian religion, and to erect Deism upon the ruins of
Christianity." Js this enough, fathers ? Will you be satis-
fied if all this be believed of the objects of your hate ? Would
your animosity be glutted at length, if you could but succeed
in making them odious, not only to all within the Church, by
the charge of " consenting with Geneva" of which you accuse
them, but even to all who believe in Jesus Christ, though
beyond the pale of the Church, by the imputation of Deism ?
But whom do you expect to convince, upon your simple
asseveration, without the slightest shadow of proof, and in
the face of every imaginable contradiction, that priests who
preach nothing but the grace of Jesus Christ, the purity of
the Gospel, and the obligations of baptism, have renounced
at once their baptism, the Gospel, and Jesus Christ ? Who
will believe it, fathers? Wretched as you are,1 do you be-
'ieve it yourselves ? What a sad predicament is yours, when
fou must either prove that they do not believe in Jesus
Christ, or must pass for the most abandoned calumniators.
Prove it, then, fathers. Name that " worthy clergyman"
who, you say, attended that assembly at Bourg-Fonlaine*

1 Miserables que vans etes — one of the bitterest expressions which
Pascal has applied to his opponents, and one which they have deeply
felt, but the full force of which can hardly be rendered into English.

* With regard to this famous assemoly at Bourg- Fontaine, in which
i was alleged a conspiracy was formed by the Jansenists against the
Christian religion, the curious reader may consult the work of M. Ar-
nauld entitled Morale Pratique des Jesuites, vol. viii., where there is a
letailed account of the whole proceedings. (Nicole, iv. 283.)

t!2 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

in 1621, and discovered to Brother Filleau the desigi. there
concerted of overturning the Christian religion. Name those
six persons who you allege to have formed that conspiracy.
Name the individual who is designated by the fetters A. A.,
who you say " was not Antony Arnauld" (because he con-
vinced you that he was at that time only nine years of age),
"but another person, who you say is still in life, but too good
a friend of M. Arnauld not to be known to htm." You know
him, then, fathers ; and consequently, if you are not destitute
of religion yourselves, you are hound to delate that impious
wretch to the king and parliament, that he may be punished
according to his deserts. You must speak out, fathers ; you
must name the person, or submit to the disgrace of being
henceforth regarded in no other light than as common liars,
Tinworthy of being ever credited again. Good Father Va-
lerien has taught us that this is the way in which such char-
acters should be " put to the rack," and brought to their
senses. Your silence upon the present challenge will fur-
nish a full and satisfactory confirmation of this diabolical
calumny. Your blindest admirers will be constrained to
admit, that it will be " the result, not of your goodness, but
your impotency ;" and to wonder how you could be so wicked
as to extend your hatred even to the nuns of Port-Royal, and
to say, as you do in page 14, that The Secret Chaplet of the
tloly Sacrament,1 composed by one of their number, was
the first-fruit of that conspiracy against Jesus Christ ; or, as
m page 95, that " they have imbibed all the detestable prin-
ciples of that work ;" which is, according to your account,
" a lesson in Deism." Your falsehoods regarding that book
have already been triumphantly refuted, in the defence of

* The Secret Chaplet of the most Holy Sacrament. — Such was the
title of a very harmless piece of mystic devotion of three or four pages,
ihe production of a nun of Port-Royal, called Sister Agnes de Saint
Paul which appeared in 1628. It excited the jealousy of the Arch-
bishop of Sens — set the doctors of Paris and those of Louvain by the
ears — occasioned a war of pamphlets and was finally carried by appeal
•o the Court of Rome, by which it was suppressed. (Nicole, iv. 30'2.
Agnes de St. Paul was the younger sister of the Mere Angelique Ar
nauld. and both of them were sisters of the celebrated M. Arnauld

THE HOLY THORN, 413

the censure of the late Archbishop of Paris against Father
Brisacier. That publication you are incapable of answering ;
and yet you do not scruple to abuse it in a more shameful
manner than ever, for the purpose of charging women, whose
piety is universally known, with the vilest blasphemy.

Cruel, cowardly persecutors ! Must, then, the most retired
cloisters afford no retreat from your calumnies ? While
these consecrated virgins are employed, night and day, ac-
ording to their institution, in adoring Jesus Christ in the
holy sacrament, you cease not, night nor day, to publish
abroad that they do not believe that he is either in the eu-
charist or even at the right hand of his Father ; and you are
publicly excommunicating them from the Church, at the
very time when they are in secret praying for the whole
Church, and for you ! You blacken with your slanders
those who have neither ears to hear nor mouths to answer
you ! But Jesus Christ, in whom they are now hidden, not
to appear till one day together with him, hears you, and an-
swers for them. At the moment I am now writing, that
holy and terrible voice is heard which confounds nature and
consoles the Church.1 And I fear, fathers, that those who

1 This refers to the celebrated miracles of " the Holy Thorn," the first
of which, said to have lately taken place in Port-Royal, was then cre-
ating much sensation. The facts are briefly these : A thorn, said to
have belonged to the crown of thorns worn by our Saviour, having been
presented, in March 165G, to the Monastery of Port-Royal, the nuns
tind their young pupils were permitted, each in turn, to kiss the relic.
9ne of the latter, Margaret Perier. the niece of Pascal, a girl of about
len or eleven years of age. had been long troubled with a disease in the
ye (fistula lachrymalis). which had baffled the skill of all the physi-
ians of Paris. On approaching the holy thorn, she applied it to the
diseased organ, and shortly thereafter exclaimed, to the surprise and
delight of all the sisters, that her eye was completely cured. A certifi-
•ate. signed by some of the most celebrated physicians, attested the cure
&s, in their opinion a miraculous one. The friends of Port-Royal, and
none more than Pascal, were overjoyed at this interposition, which, be-
ing followed by other extraordinary cures, they regarded as a voice from
heaven in favor of that institution. The Jesuits alone rejected it with
idicule. and publish'ed a piece, entitled " Rabat-joie &c. — A Damper :
or, Observations on what has lately happened at Port-Royal as to the
affair of the Holy Thorn." This was answered in November 1653. in
i tract supposed to have been written by M. de Pont Chateau, who was
•ailed " the Clerk of the Holy Thorn.1' assisted by Pascal. (Recueil de
Pieces. &c.. de Port-Royal, pp 283-448.') It has been well observed,

414 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

now harden their hearts, and refuse with obstinacy to hear
him, while ho speaks in the character of God, will one Hay
be compelled to hear him with terror, when he speaks to
them in the character of a Judge. What account, indeed,
fathers, will you be able to render to him of the many cal-
umnies you have uttered, seeing that he will examine them,
in that day, not according to the fantasies of Fathers Dicas-
tille, Gans, and Pennalossa, who justify them, but according
to the eternal laws of truth, and the sacred ordinances of
his own Church, which, so far from attempting to vindicate
that crime, abhors it to such a degree that she visits it with
the same penalty as wilful murder ? By the first and second
Councils of Aries she has decided that the communion shall
be denied to slanderers as well as murderers, till the approach
of death. The Council of Lateran has judged those unwor-
thy of admission into the ecclesiastical state who have been
convicted of the crime, even though they may have reformed.
The popes have even threatened to deprive of the communion
at death those who have calumniated bishops, priests, or
deacons. And the authors of a defamatory libel, who fail to
prove what they have advanced, are condemned by Pope
Adrian to be whipped ; — yes, reverend fathers, flagellentur is
the word. So strong has been the repugnance of the Church
at all times to the errors of your Society — a Society so thor-
oughly depraved as to invent excuses for the grossest of
crimes, such as calumny, chiefly that it may enjoy the greater
freedom in perpetrating them itself. There can be no doubt,
fathers, that you would be capable of producing abundance
of mischief in this way, had God not permitted you to fur-

'that many laborious and voluminous discussions might have been
saved, if the simple and very reasonable rule had been adopted of
waiving investigation into the credibility of any narrative of supernat-
ural or pretended supernatural e"ents. said to have taken place upon
\pnsecrated ground, or under sacred roofs." (Natifral Hist, of Enthusi-
asm, p. '23'!.) •• It is well known. "says Mosheim •' that the Jansenistt
»nd Augustinians have long pretended to confirm their doctrine by
miracles : and they even acknowledge that these miracles have saveu
Ihem when their affairs have been reduced to a desperate situation
(Mosh. Eccl. Hist., cent, ivii., sect. 2.)

CALUMNV RENDERED INNOCUOUS. 415

nish with your own hands the means of preventing the evil,
and of rendering your slanders perfectly innocuous ; for, to
deprive you of all credibility, it was quite enough to publish
the strange maxim, that it is no crime to calumniate. Cal-
umny is nothing, if not associated with a high reputation for
honesty. The defamer can make no impression, unless ha
has the character of one that abhors defamation, as a crime
of which he is incapable. And thus, fathers, you are be-
trayed by your own principle. You established the doctrine
to secure yourselves a safe conscience, that you might slander
without risk of damnation, and be ranked with those " pious
and holy calumniators" of whom St. Athanasius speaks. To
save yourselves from hell, you have embraced a maxim which
promises you this security on the faith of your doctors ; but
this same maxim, while it guarantees you, according to their
idea, against the evils you dread in the future world, deprives
you of all the advantage you may have expected to reap
from it in the present ; so that, in attempting to escape the
guilt, you have lost the benefit of calumny. Such is the self-
contrariety of evil, and so completely does it confound and
destroy itself by its own intrinsic malignity.

You might have slandered, therefore, much more advan-
tageously for yourselves, had you professed to hold, with St.
Paul, that evil speakers are not worthy to see God ; for in
this case, though you would indeed have been condemning
yourselves, your slanders would at least have stood a better
chance of being believed. But by maintaining, as you have
lone, that calumny against your enemies is no crime, your
slanders will be discredited, and you yourselves damned into
the bargain ; for two things are certain, fathers — first, That
it will never be in the power of your grave doctors to anni-
hilate the justice of God ; and, secondly, That you could not
give more certain evidence that you are not of the Truth
than by y sir resorting to falsehood. If the Truth were on
your side, ;^he would fight for you — she would conquer for
you; and •whatever enemies you might have to encounter,
" tie Truth would set you free" from them, according to hei

416 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

promise. Bat you have had recourse to falsehood, for no
other design than to support the errors with which you flat-
ter the sinful children of this world, and to bolster up the
calumnies with which you persecute every man of piety who
sets his face against these delusions. The truth being dia-
metrically opposed to your ends, it behooved you, to use the
language of the prophet, " to put your confidence in lies."
You have said, " The scourges which afflict mankind shall
not come nigh unto us; for we have made lies our refuge,
and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." 1 But what
says the prophet in reply to such ? " Forasmuch," says he,
" as ye have put your trust in calumny and tumult, — speras-
tis in calumnia et in tumidtu — this iniquity and your ruin
shall be like that of a high wall whose breaking cometh sud-
denly at an instant. And he shall break it as the breaking
of the potter's vessel that is shivered in pieces " — with such
violence that " there shall not be found in the bursting of it
a shred to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal
out of the pit." * " Because," as another prophet says, " ye
have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not
made sad; and ye have flattered and strengthened the mal-
ice of the wicked; I will therefore deliver my people out
of your hands, and ye shall know that I am their Lord and
yours." *

Yes, fathers, it is to be hoped that if you do not repent,
God will deliver out of your hands those whom you have so
\ong deluded, either by flattering them in their evil courses
with your Ljentious maxims, or by poisoning their minds
with your slanders. He will convince the former that the
false rules of your casuists will not screen them from his in-
dignation; and he will impress on the minds of the latter the
•ust dread of losing their souls by listening and yielding
credit to your slanders, as you lose yours by hatching these

1 Isa. xxviii. 15. * Isa. xxx. 12-14.

1 Ezek. xiii. 23. Pascal does not, either here or elsewhere, when
quoting from Scripture, adhere very closely to the original, nor even to
the Vulgate version.

NO IMPUNITY FOR SLANDERERS. 417

llanders and disseminating them through the woild. Let
DO man be deceived; God is not mocked; none may violate
with impunity the commandment which he has given us in
the Gospel, not to condemn our neighbor without being well
assured of his guilt. And consequently, what profession so-
ever of piety those may make who lend a willing ear to your
lying devices, and under what pretence soever of devotion
they may entertain them, they have reason to apprehend ex-
clusion from the kingdom of God, solely for having imputed
crimes of such a dark complexion as heresy and schism to
Catholic priests and holy nuns, upon no better evidence than
such vile fabrications as yours. " The devil," says M. de
Geneve,1 " is on the tongue of him that slanders, and in the
ear of him that listens to the slanderer." " And evil speak-
ing," says St. Bernard, " is a poison that extinguishes charity
in both of the parties; so that a single calumny may prove
mortal to an infinite number of souls, killing not only those
who publish it, but all those besides by whom it is not re-
pudiated." *

Reverend fathers, my letters were not wont either to be so
prolix, or to follow so closely on one another. Want of
time must plead my excuse for both of these faults. The
present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no
leisure to make it shorter. You know the reason of this
haste better than I do. You have been unlucky in your
answers. You have done well, therefore, to change your
plan ; but I am afraid that you will get no credit for it, and
that people will say it was done for fear of the Benedictines.

I have just come to learn that the person who was gene
rally reported to be the author of your Apologies, disclaims
them, and is annoyed at their having been ascribed to him
He has good reason, and I was wrong to have suspected
Mm of any such thing; for, in spite of the assurances which

1 This was the name given to St. Francis de Sales, bishop and prince
of Geneva,, previously to his canonization, which took place in 1665.
1 Serm. 24 in Cantic.

1C*

418 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

I received, I ought to have considered that he was a man
of too much good sense to believe your accusations, and of
too much honor to publish them if he did not believe them.
There are few people in the world capable of your extrava-
gances ; they are peculiar to yourselves, and mark your
character too plainly to admit of any excuse for having failed
to recognize your hand in their concoction. I was led away
by the common report; but this apology, which would be
too good for you, is not sufficient for me, who profess to ad-
vance nothing without certain proof. In no other instance
have I been guilty of departing from this rule. I am sorry
for what I said. I retract it; and I only wish that you may
profit by my example." '

1 These two postscripts have been often admired — the former for the
author's elegant excuse for the length of his letter ; the latter for the
adroitness with which he turns his apology for an undesigned mistake
into a stroke at the disingenuousness of his opponents.

LETTER XVII.1

TO THE REVEREND FATHER ANNAT, JESUIT.*

tHB AUTHOB OF THE LETTERS VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE 0?
HERESY AN HERETICAL PHANTOM POPES AND GENERAL COUN-
CILS NOT INFALLIBLE IN QUESTIONS OF FACT.

January 23, 1657.

REVEREND FATHER, — Your former behavior had induced
me to believe that you were anxious for a truce hi our hos-
tilities; and I was quite disposed to agree that it should be
BO. Of late, however, you have poured forth such a volley
of pamphlets, in such rapid succession, as to make it appa-
rent that peace rests on a very precarious footing when it de-
pends on the silence of Jesuits. I know not if this rupture
will prove very advantageous to you; but, for my part, I am
far from regretting the opportunity which it affords me of
rebutting that stale charge of heresy with which your writ-
ings abound.

It is full time, indeed, that I should, once for all, put a
stop to the liberty you have taken to treat me as a heretic —

piece of gratuitous impertinence which seems to increase
by indulgence, and which is exhibited in your last book in a
style of such intolerable assurance, that were I not to an-
swer the charge as it deserves, I might lay myself open to
the suspicion of being actually guilty. So long as the insult
was confined to your associates I despised it, as I did a thou-
sand others with which they interlarded their productions.
To these my fifteenth letter was a sufficient reply. But you

1 M. Nicole furnished tne materials for this letter. (Nicole, iv. 324.)
3 Francis Annat, the same person formerly referred to at p. 180.
He became French provincial of the Jesuits, and confessor to Louis XIV.

420 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

now repeat the charge with a different air : you make it the
main point of your vindication. It is, in fact, almost the
only thing in the shape of argument that you employ. You
say that, " as a complete answer to my fifteen letters, it is
enough to say fifteen times that I am a heretic ; and having
been pronounced such, I deserve no credit." Ja short, you
make no question of my apostasy, but assume it as a settled
point, on which you may build with all confidence. You are
serious then, father, it would seem, in deeming me a heretic.
I shall be equally serious in replying to the charge.

You are well aware, sir, that heresy is a charge of so
grave a character, that it is an act of high presumption to
advance, without being prepared to substantiate it. I now
demand your proofs. When was I seen at Charenton ?
When did I fail in my presence at mass, or in my Christian
duty to my parish church ? What act of union with here-
tics, or of schism with the Church, can you lay to my charge ?
What council have I contradicted ? What papal constitu-
tion have I violated ? You must answer, father, else

You know what I mean.1 And what do you answer ? I
beseech all to observe it : First of all, you assume " that the
author of the letters is a Port-Royalist ;" then you tell us
" that Port- Royal is declared to be heretical ;" and, there-
fore, you conclude, " the author of the letters must be a here-
tic." It is not on me, then, father, that the weight of this
indictment falls, but on Port-Royal ; and I am only involved
in the crime because you suppose me to belong to that estab-
lishment ; so that it will .be no difficult matter for roe to ex-
t jlpate myself from the charge. I have no more to say than
that I am not a member of that community ; and to refer
you to my letters, in which I have declared that " I am a
private individual ; " and again in so many words, that " I am
not of Port-Royal," as I said in my sixteenth letter, which
preceded your publication.

You must fall on some other way, then, to prove me

1 A threat, evidently, of administering to him the Meriting impudent
Huime of the Capuchin, mentioned at p. 383.

CHARGE OF HERESY. 421

aeretic, otherwise the whole world will be convinced that it
s beyond your power to make good your accusation. Prove
from my writings that I do not receive the constitution.1
My letters are net- very voluminous — there are but sixteen of
them — and I defy you or anybody else to detect in them the
slightest foundation for such a charge. I shall, however,
with your rermission, produce something out of them to
prove the reverse. When, for example, I say in the four-
teenth that, " by killing our brethren in mortal sin, according
to your maxims, we are damning those for whom Jesus
Christ died," do I not plainly acknowledge that Jesus Christ
died for those who may be damned, and, consequently, de-
clare it to be false " that he died only for the predestinated,"
which is the error condemned in the fifth proposition ? Cer-
tain it is, father, that I have not said a word in behalf of
these impious propositions, which I detest with all my heart.2
And even though Port-Royal should hold them, I protest
against your drawing any conclusion from this against me,
as, thank God, I have no sort of connection with any com-
munity except the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church,
in the bosom of which I desire to live and die, in communion
with the pope, the head of the Church, and beyond the pale
of which I am persuaded there is no salvation.

1 Tke constitution — that is, the bull of Pope Alexander VI I., issued
in October 165(3, in which he not only condemned the Five Proposi-
tions, but, in compliance with the solicitations of the Jesuits, added an
express clause, to the effect that these had been faithfully extracted from
^ansenius and were heretical in the sense in which he (Jansenius)
employed them. This was a more stringent constitution than the first ;
but the Jansenists were ready to meet him on this point ; they replied
that a declaration of this nature overstepped the limits of the papal au-
thority, and that the pope's infallibility did not extend to a judgmen*
tf facts.

3 The Five Propositions. — A brief view of these celebrated Proposi-
tons may be here given, as necessary to the understanding of the text.
They were as follows: — I. That some commandments of God are im-
practicable even to the rignteous. who desire to keep them, according
to their present strength. II. That grace is irresistible. III. That
moral freedom consists, not in exemption from necessity, but from con-
-traint. IV. That to assert that the will may resist or obey the motions
of converting grace as it pleased, was a heresy of the semi-Pelagians.
V. That to asse't that Jesus Chnst died for all men without excf ption,
a an error of 'he semi-Pelagians. For a fuller explication of tht con-
troversy, the reader must be referred to the Introduction.

422 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

How are you to get at a person who talks in this way, fa-
ther ? On what quarter will you assail me, since neither my
words nor my writings afford the slightest handle to your
accusations, and the obscurity in which my person is envel-
oped forms my protection against your threatenings ? You
feel yourselves smitten by an invisible hand — a hand, how-
ever, which makes your delinquencies visible to all the earth;
and in vain do you endeavor to attack me in the person of
those with whom you suppose me to be associated. I fear
you not, either on my own account or on that of any other,
being bound by no tie either to a community or to any indi-
vidual whatsoever.1 All the influence which your Society
possesses can be of no avail in my case. From this world
J have nothing to hope, nothing to dread, nothing to desire.
Through the goodness of God, I have no need of any man's
money or any man's patronuge. Thus, my father, I elude
all your attempts to lay hold of me. You may touch Port-
Royal if you choose, but you shall not touch me. You may
turn people out of the Sorbonne, but that will not turn me
out of my domicile. You may contrive plots against priests
and doctors, but not against me, for I am neither the one
nor the other. And thus, father, you never perhaps had to
do, in the whole course of your experience, with a person so
completely beyond your reach, and therefore so admirably
qualified for dealing with your errors — one perfectly free —
one without engagement, entanglement, relationship, or bu-
siness of any kind — one, too, who is pretty well versed in
your maxims, and determined, as God shall give him light,
to discuss them, without permitting any earthly considera-
tion to arrest or slacken his endeavors.

1 Pascal might say this with truth, for his only relatives being nuns,
tl-.t tie of earthly relationship was considered by him as no longer ex-
isting; and beyond personal friendship, he had really no connection
Kith Port-Royal. There is as little truth as force therefore, in the taunt
Df a late advocate of the Jesuits, who says, in reference to this passage :
' Pascal was intimately connected with Port-Royal, he was even nuin-
jered among its recluses; and yet, in the act of unmasking the presumed
duplicity of the Jesuits, the sublime writer did not scruple to imitate it..1
,Hist. de la Comp. de J^sus, par J. Cretineau-Jolv, torn. iv. p. 54. Paris
18-15.)

CHARGE OF HERESY 423

Since, then, you can do nothing against me, what good
purpose can it serve to publish so many calumnies, as you
and your brethren are doing, against a class of persons who
are in no way implicated in our disputes ? You shall not es-
cape under these subterfuges : you shall be made to feel the
force of the truth in spite of them. How does the case
stand ? I tell you that you are ruining Christian morality
by divorcing it from the love of God, and dispensing with
its obligation; and you talk about " the death of Father Mes-
ter" — a person whom I never saw in my life. I tell you
that your authors permit a man to kill another for the sake
of an apple, when it would be dishonorable to lose it ; and
you reply by informing me that somebody " has broken into
the poor-box at St. Merri !" Again, what can you possibly
mean by mixing me up perpetually with the book " On the
Holy Virginity," written by some father of the Oratory, whom
I never saw, anymore than his book ?"' It is rather extraor-
dinary, father, that you should thus regard all that are op-
posed to you as if they were one person. Your hatred
would grasp them all at once, and would hold them as a
body of reprobates, every one of whom is responsible for all
the rest.

There is a vast difference between Jesuits and all their op-
ponents. There can be no doubt that you compose one
body, united under one head ; and your regulations, as I have
shown, prohibit you from printing anything without the ap-
orobation of your superiors, who are responsible for all the
t*rors of individual writers, and who " cannot excuse them-
selves by saying that they did not observe the errors in any
publication, for they ought to have observed them." So say
your ordinances, and so say the letters of your generals,

1 " This book of the Holy Virginity was a translation from St. Au-
oru«tine made by Father Sesjuenot priest of the Oratory. So far, all
was right ; but the priest had added to the original text some odd and
peculiar remarks of his own which merited censure. As the publica-
(on came from the Oratory, a community always attached to the doc-
trine of St. Augustine an attempt was made to throw the blame on
those called Jansenists." vNote by Nicole, iv. 3!)'2.)

424 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Aquaviva, Vitelleschi, &c. We have good reason, therefore,
for charging upon you the errors of your associates, when we
find they are sanctioned by your superiors and the divines of
your Society. With me, however, father, the case stands
otherwise. I have not subscribed the book of the Holy Vir-
ginity. All the alms-boxes in Paris may be broken into, and
yet I am not the less a good Catholic for all that. In short,
I beg to inform you, in the plainest terms, that nobody is re
sponsible for my letters but myself, and that I am responsi
ble for nothing but my letters.

Here, father, I might fairly enough have brought our dis-
pute to an issue, without saying a word about those other
persons whom you stigmatize as heretics, in order to compre-
hend me under that condemnation. But as I have been the
occasion of their ill treatment, I consider myself bound in
Borne sort to improve the occasion, and I shall take advantage
of it in three particulars. One advantage, not inconsiderable
in its way, is that it will enable me to vindicate the innocence
of so many calumniated individuals. Another, not inappro-
priate to my subject, will be to disclose, at the same time,
the artifices of your policy in this accusation. But the ad-
vantage which I prize most of all is, that it affords me an
opportunity of apprizing the world of the falsehood of that
scandalous report which you have been so busily dissemina-
ting, namely, " that the Church is divided by a new heresy."
And as you are deceiving multitudes into the belief that the
points on which you are raising such a storm are essential to
the faith, I consider it of the last importance to quash these
unfounded impressions, and distinctly to explain here what
these points are, so as to show that, in point of fact, there
are no heretics in the Church.

I presume, then, that were the question to be asked,
vVherein consists the heresy of those called Jansemsts ? the
mmediate reply would be, " These people hold that the com-
nandments of God are impracticable to men — that grace is
irresistible — that we have not free will to do either good or
svil — that Jesus Christ did not die for all men, but only for

THE FIVE PROPOSITIONS. 425

the elect; in short, they maintain the five propositions con-
demned by- the pope." Do you not give it out to all that
this is the ground on which you persecute your opponents ?
Have you not said as much in your books, in your conversa-
tions, in your catechisms ? A specimen of this you gave at
the late Christmas festival at St. Louis. One of your little
shepherdesses was questioned thus : —

" For whom did Jesus Christ come into the world, my
dear ?"

" For all men, father."

" Indeed, my child; so you are not one of those new here-
tics who say that he came only for the elect ?"

Thus children are led to believe you, and many others be-
sides children; for you entertain people with the same stuff
in your sermons, as Father Crasset did at Orleans, before he
was laid under an interdict. And I frankly own that, at one
time, I believed you myself. You had given me precisely
the same idea of these good people ; so that when you
pressed them on these propositions, I narrowly watched their
answer, determined never to see them more, if they did not
renounce them as palpable impieties.

This, however, they have done in the most unequivocal
way. M. de Sainte-Beuve,' king's professor in the Sorbonne,
censured these propositions in his published writings long be-
fore the pope; and other Augustiuian doctors, in various
publications, and, among others, in a work " On Victorious
Grace," * reject the same articles as both heretical and strange
doctrines. In the preface to that work they say that these
Dropositions are " heretical and Lutheran, forged and fabrica-
ted at pleasure, and are neither to be found in Jansenius, nor

1 " M. Jacques de Sainte-Beuve, one of the ablest divines of his age,
preferred to relinquish his chair in the Sorbonne rather than concur in
he censure of M. Arnauld, whose orthodoxy he regarded as beyond
•uspicipn. He died in 16"?." (Note by Nicole.)

* This work was entitled " On the Victorious Grace of Jesus Christ;
-r, Molina and his followers convicted of the error of the Pelagians and
gemi-Pelagians. By the Sieur de Bonlieu. Paris, 1651." The real
fcuthor was the celebrated M. de la Lane, well known in that contro-
versy. (Note by Nicole.)

426 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

in his defenders." They complain of being charged with such
sentiments, and address you in the words of St. Prosper, the
first disciple of St. Augustine their master, to whom the
semi-Pelagians of France had ascribed similar opinions, with
the view of bringing him into disgrace : " There are persons
who denounce us, so blinded by passion that they have
adopted means for doing so which ruin their own reputation.
They have, for this purpose, fabricated propositions of the
most impious and blasphemous character, which they indus-
triously circulate, to make people believe that we maintain
them in the wicked sense which they are pleased to attach to
them. But our reply will show at once our innocence, and the
malignity of these persons who have ascribed to us a set of im-
pious tenets, of which they are themselves the sole inventors."

Truly, father, when I found that they had spoken in this
way before the appearance of the papal constitution — when
I saw that they afterwards received that decree with all pos-
sible respect, that they offered to subscribe it, and that M.
Arnauld had declared all this in his second letter, in stronger
terms than I can report him, I should have considered it a siu
to doubt their soundness in the faith. And, in fact, those
who were formerly disposed to refuse absolution to M. Ar-
nauld's friends, have since declared, that after his explicit dis-
claimer of the errors imputed to him, there was no reason
left for cutting off either him or them from the communion
of the Church. Your associates, however, have acted very
differently; and it was this that made me begin to suspect
that you were actuated by prejudice.

You threatened first to compel them to sign that consti-
tution, so long as you thought they would resist it; but no
sooner did you see them quite ready of their own accord to
submit to it, than we heard no more about this. Still, how-
ever, though one might suppose this ought to have satisfied
you, you persisted in calling them heretics, " because," said
Vxra, " their heart belies their hand ; they are Catholics out-
wardly, but inwardly they are heretics." l

1 Reponse & quelqnes demandes, pp. 27, 47.

THE FIVE PROPOSITIONS. 427

This, father, struck me as very strange reasoning; for
where is the person of whom as much may not be said at
any time ? And what endless trouble and confusion would
ensue, were it allowed to go on ! " If," says Pope St. Gre-
gory, " we refuse to believe a confession of faith made in
conformity to the sentiments of the Church, we cast a doubt
over the faith of all Catholics whatsoever." I am afraid,
father, to use the words of the same pontiff, when speaking
of a similar dispute in his time, " that your object is to make
these persons heretics in spite of themselves ; because to
refuse to credit those who testify by their confession that
they are in the true faith, is not to purge heresy, but to
create it — hoc non est hceresim purgare, sed facere. But
what confirmed me in my persuasion that there was indeed
no heretic in the Church, was finding that our so-called her-
etics had vindicated themselves so successfully, that you
were unable to accuse them of a single error in the faith, and
that you were reduced to the necessity of assailing them on
questions of fact only, touching Jansenius, which could not
possibly be construed into heresy. You insist, it now ap-
pears, on their being compelled to acknowledge " that these
propositions are contained in Jansenius, word for word, every
one of them, in so many terms," or, as ytm express it,
Singulares, individuce, totidem verbis apud Jansenium con*
tentce.

Thenceforth your dispute became, in my eyes, perfectly
:ndifferent. So long as I believed that you were debating
he truth or falsehood of the propositions, I was all attention,
r thai, quarrel touched the faith ; but when I discovered
that the bone of contention was whether they were to be
found, word for word, in Jansenius or not, as religion ceased
to be interested in the controversy, 1 ceased to be interested
in it also, jtfjt but that there was some presumption that
you were speaking the truth ; because to say that such
ind such expressions -ire to oe found, word for word, in an
author, is a matter in which there can be no mistake. I do
•dot wonder, therefore, that so many people, both in France

428 PROVINCIAL LETTERS

and at Rome, should have been led to believe, on the author-
ity of a phrase so little liable to suspicion, that Jansenius haa
actually taught these obnoxious tenets. And for the same
reason, I was not a little surprised to learn that this same
point of fact, which you had propounded as so certain and
so important, was false ; and that after being challenged to
quote the pages of Jansenius, in which you had found these
propositions "word for word," you have not been .able to
point them out to this day.

I am the more particular in giving this statement, because,
in my opinion, it discovers, in a very striking light, the spirit
of your Society in the whole of this affair ; and because some
people will be astonished to find that, notwithstanding all
the facts above mentioned, you have not ceased to publish
that they are heretics still. But you have only altered the
heresy to suit the time ; for no sooner had they freed them-
selves from one charge than your fathers, determined that
they should never want an accusation, substituted another in
its place. Thus, in 1653, their heresy lay in the quality of
the propositions ; then came the word for word heresy ;
after that, we had the heart heresy. And now we hear
nothing of any of these, and they must be heretics, forsooth,
unless they sig*n a declaration to the effect, " that the sense
of the doctrine of Jansenius is contained in the sense of the
Jive propositions."

Such is your present dispute. It is not enough for you
that they condemn the five propositions, and everything in
Jansenius that bears any resemblance to them, or is con-
trary to St. Augustine ; for all that they have done already.
The point at issue is not, for example, if Jesus Christ died
for the elect only — they condemn that as much as you do ;
but, is Jansenius of that opinion, or riot ? And here I de-
clare, more strongly than ever, that your quarrel affects me
as little as it affects the Church. For although I am no
doctor, any more than you, father, I can easily see, neverthe-
less, that it has no connection with the faith. The only
question is, to ascertain what is the sense of Jansenius. Did

THE FIVE PROPOSITIONS. 429

they believe that his doctrine corresponded to the proper
and literal sense of these propositions, they would condemn
it; and they refuse to do so, because they are convinced it is
quite the reverse; so that although they should misunder-
stand it, still they would not be heretics, seeing they un-
derstand it only in a Catholic sense.

To illustrate this by an example, I may refer to the con-
flicting sentiments of St. Basil and St. Athanasius, regarding
the writings of St. Denis of Alexandria, which St. Basil,
conceiving that he found in them the sense of Arius against
the equality of the Father and the Sou, condemned as heret-
ical, but which St. Athanasius, on the other hand, judging
them to contain the genuine sense of the Church, maintained
to be perfectly orthodox. Think you, then, father, that St.
Basil, who held these writings to be Arian, had a right to
brand St. Athanasius as a heretic, because he defended
them ? And what ground would he have had for so doing,
seeing that it was not Arianism that his brother defended,
but the true faith which he considered these writings to con-
tain ? Had these two saints agreed about the true sense of
these writings, and had both recognized this heresy in them,
unquestionably St. Athanasins could not have approved of
them without being guilty of heresy; but as they were at
variance respecting the sense of the passages, St. Athanasius
was orthodox in vindicating them, even though he may have
anderstood them wrong; because in that case it would have
been merely an error in a matter of fact, and because what
he defended was really the Catholic faith, which he supposed
to be contained in these writings.

I apply this to you, father. Suppose you were agreed
upon the sense of Jansenius, and your adversaries were ready
to admit with you that he held, for example, thai grace can-
not be resisted ; those who refused to condemn him would be
heretical. But as your dispute turns upon the meaning of
\hat author, and they believe that, according to his doctrine,
grace may be resisted, whatever heresy you may be pleased
to attribute to him, you have no ground to brand them as

<30 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

heretics, seeing they condemn the sense which you put on
Jansenius, and you dare not condemn the sense which they
put on him. If, therefore, you mean to convict them, show
tli at the sense which they ascribe to Janseuius is heretical;
for then they will be heretical themselves. But how could
you accomplish this, since it is certain, according to your
own showing, that the meaning which they give to his lan-
guage has never been condemned ?

To elucidate the point still further, I shall assume as a
principle what you yourselves acknowledge — that the doc-
trine of efficacious grace has never been condemned, and that
the pope has not touched it by his constitution. And, in fact,
when he proposed to pass judgment on the five propositions,
the question of efficacious grace was protected against all
censure. This is perfectly evident from the judgments of
the consulters,1 to whom the pope committed them for exami-
nation. These judgments I have in my possession, in com-
mon with many other persons in Paris, and, among the rest,
the Bishop of Montpelier,* who brought them from Rome.
It appears from this document, that they were divided in
their sentiments; that the chief persons among them, such as
the Master of the Sacred Palace, the commissary of the
Holy Office, the General of the Augustinians, and others,
conceiving that these propositions might be understood in the
sense of efficacious grace, were of opinion that they ought not
to be censured; whereas the rest, while they agreed that the
propositions would not have merited condemnation, had they
borne that sense, judged that they ought to be censured, be
cause, as they contended, this was very far from being their
oroper and natural sense. The pope, accordingly, con-

i These judgments, or Vota Consultonim, as they were called, have
been often printed, and particularly at the end of the Journal de M. dt
St. Amour — a book essentially necessary to the right understanding of
all the intrigues employed in the condemnation of Jansenius. (Note by
Nicole.)

* This was Francis du Bosquet, \vho. from being Bishop of Lodeve,
W;is made Bishop of Montpelier in llioo, and died in l(J7(i. He was one
-»f the most learned bishops of his time in ecclesiastical matters.
.y Nicole.)

THE FIVE I ROl'OSITIONS. 431

demned them; and all parties have acquiesced in his judg-
ment.

It is certain, then, father, that efficacious grace has not
been condemned. Indeed, it is so powerfully supported by
St. Augustine, by St. Thomas, and all his school, by a great
many popes and councils, and by all tradition, that to tax it
with heresy would be an act of impiety. Now, all those
whom you condemn as heretics declare that they find nothing
in Jansenius, but this doctrine of efficacious grace. And this
was the only point which they maintained at Rome. You
have acknowledged this yourself, when you declare that,
" when pleading before the pope, they did not say a single
word about the propositions, but occupied the whole time in
talking about efficacious grace."1 So that whether they be
right or wrong in this supposition, it is undeniable, at least,
that what they suppose to be the sense is not heretical sense ;
and that, consequently, they are no heretics : for, to state the
matter in two words, either Jansenius has merely taught the
doctrine of efficacious grace, and in this case he has no
errors ; or he has taught some other thing, and in this case
he has no defenders. The whole question turns on ascertain-
ing whether Jansenius has actually maintained something
different from efficacious grace ; and should it be found that
he has, you will have the honor of having better understood
him, but they will not have the misfortune of having erred
from the faith.

It is matter of thankfulness to God, then, father, that there
is in reality no heresy in the Church. The question relates
entirely to a point of fact, of which no heresy can be made ;
for the Church, with divine authority, decides the points of
faith, and cuts off from her body all who refuse to receive
them. But she does not act in the same manner in regard
to matters of fact. And the reason is, that our salvation is
attached to the faith which has been revealed to us, and
which is preserved in the Church by tradition, but that it
has no dependence on facts which have not been revealed
i Cavill. •», 35

132 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

oy God. Thus we are bound to believe that the command-
ments of God are not impracticable; but we are under no
obligation to know what Jansenius has said upon that sub-
ject. In the determination of points of faith God guides the
Church by the aid of his unerring Spirit ; whereas in matters
of fact, he leaves her to the direction of reason and the
senses, which are the natural judges of such matters. None
but God was able to instruct the Church in the faith ; but to
learn whether this or that proposition is contained in Janse-
nius, all we require to do is to read his book. And from hence
it follows, that while it is heresy to resist the decisions of the
faith, because this amounts to an opposing of our own spirit
to the Spirit of God, it is no heresy, though it may be an act
of presumption, to disbelieve certain particular facts, because
this is no more than opposing reason — it may be enlightened
reason — to an authority which is great indeed, but in this mat-
ter not infallible.

What I have now advanced is admitted by all theologians,
as appears from the following axiom of Cardinal Bellarmine,
a member of your Society : " General and lawful councils
are incapable of error in defining the dogmas of faith ; but
they may err in questions of fact." In another place he
says : " The pope, as pope, and even as the head of a uni-
versal council, may err in particular controversies of fact,
which depend principally on the information and testimony
of men." Cardinal Baronius speaks in the same manner :
" Implicit submission is due to the decisions of councils in
points of faith ; but, in so far as persons and their writings
are concerned, the censures which have been pronounced
against them have not been so rigorously observed, because
there is none who may not chance to be deceived in such
matters." I may add that, to prove this point, the Arch-
bishop of Toulouse1 has deduced the following rule from the
etters of two great popes — St. Leon and Pelagius II. : " That

1 M. de Marca an illustrious prelate, who was Archbishop of Tou
o se. before he was nominated to the see of Paris, of which he wa*
»nly prevented by death from taking possession. (Nicole.)

POPES FALLIBLE IX MATTERS OF FACT. 433

the proper object of councils is the faith; and whatsoever is
determined by them, independent!) of the faith, may be re-
viewed and examined anew: whereas nothing ought to be re-
examined that has been decided in a matter of faith; be-
cause, as Tertullian observes, the rule of faith alone is immov-
able and irrevocable."

Hence it has been seen that, while general and lawful
councils have never contradicted one another in points of
faith, because, as M. de Toulouse has said, "it is not allowa-
ble to examine de novo decisions in matters of faith ;" several
instances have occurred in which these same councils have
disagreed in points of fact, where the discussion turned upon
the sense of an author; because, as the same prelate ob-
serves, quoting the popes as his authorities, " everything de-
termined in councils, not referring to the faith, may be re-
viewed and examined de novo" An example of this contrariety
was furnished by the fourth and fifth councils, which differed
in their interpretation of the same authors. The same thing
happened in the case of two popes, about a proposition main-
tained by certain monks of Scythia. Pope Hormisdas, under-
standing it in a bad sense, had condemned it; but Pope John
II., his successor, upon re-examining the doctrine, understood
it in a good sense, approved it, and pronounced it to be or-
thodox. Would you say that for this reason one of these
popes was a heretic ? And must you not consequently ac-
knowledge that, provided a person condemn the heretical
sense which a pope may have ascribed to a book, he is no
heretic because he declines condemning that book, while he
understands it in a sense which it is certain the pope has not
condemned ? If this cannot be admitted, one of these popes
must have fallen into error.

I have been anxious to familiarize you with these discre-
pancies among Catholics regarding questions of fact, which
involve the understanding of the sense of a writer, showing
you father against father, pope against pope, and council
against council, to lead you from these to other examples of
opposition, similar in their nature, but somewhat more dis-
19

434 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

proportioned in respect of the parties concerned. For, in the
instances I am now to adduce, you will see councils and popes
ranged on one side, and Jesuits on the other; and yet you
have never charged your brethren, for this opposition, even
with presumption, much less with heresy.

You are well aware, father, that the writings of Origen
were condemned by a great many popes and councils, and
jarticularly by the fifth general council, as chargeable with
certain heresies, and, among others, that of the reconciliation
of the devils at the day of judgment. Do you suppose that,
after this, it became absolutely imperative, as a test of Ca-
tholicism, to confess that Origen actually maintained these
errors, and that it is not enough to condemn them, without
attributing them to him ? If this were true, what would
become of your worthy Father Halloix, who has asserted the
purity of Origen's faith, as well as many other Catholics, who
have attempted the same thing, such as Pico Mirandola, and
Genebrard, doctor of the Sorbonne ? Is it not, moreover, a
certain fact, that the same fifth general council condemned
the writings of Theodoret against St. Cyril, describing them
as impious, " contrary to the true faith, and tainted with the
Nestorian heresy ?" l And yet this has not prevented Father
Sirmond,* a Jesuit, from defending him, or from saying, in
his life of that father, that " his writings are entirely free from
the heresy of Nestorius."

It is evident, therefore, that as the Church, in condemning
a book, assumes that the error which she condemns is con-
tained in that book, it is a point of faith to hold that error as

i N'storian heresy — so called from Nestorins. Bishop of Const«nti-
tuple, in the fifth century, who was accused of dividing Christ into two
persons ; in other words, representing his human nature a distinct per-
son from his divine. There is some reason to think, however, that he
was quite sound in the faith, and that his real offence was his opposi-
tion to the use of the phrase, which then came into vogue, the Mother
of God, as applied to the Virgin, whom he called, in preference, Iht
Mother of Christ.

* This was James Sirmond (the uncle of Anthony, formerly men-
tioned), a learned Jesuit, and confessor to Louis XIII. He was dia
tiusrnished as an ecclesiastical historian. (Tablean de la Litt. Fran., iv
202.)

POINTS OF FAITH AND FACT. 435

condemned; but it is not a point of faith to hold that the
book, in fact, contains the error which the Church supposes
it does. Enough has been said, I think, to prove this; I
shall, therefore, conclude my examples by referring to that
of Pope Honorius, the history of which is so well known.
At the commencement of the seventh century, the Church
being troubled by the heresy of the Monothelites,1 that pope,
with the view of terminating the controversy, passed a decree
which seemed favorable to these heretics, at which many took
offence. The affair, nevertheless, passed over without mak-
ing much disturbance during his pontificate; but fifty years
after, the Church being assembled in the sixth general coun-
cil, in which Pope Agathon presided by his legates, this de-
cree was impeached, and, after being read and examined, was
condemned as containing the heresy of the Monothelites, and
under that character burnt, in open court, along with the
other writings of these heretics. Such was the respect paid
to this decision, and such the unanimity with which it was
received throughout the whole Church, that it was afterwards
ratified by two other general councils, and likewise by two
popes, Leon II. and Adrian II., the latter of whom lived two
hundred years after it had passed; and this universal and
harmonious agreement remained undisturbed for seven or
^.ight centuries. Of late years, however, some authors, and
j.mong the rest Cardinal Bellarmine, without seeming to dread
the imputation of heresy, have stoutly maintained, against all
this array of popes and councils, that the writings of Hono-
rius are free from the error which had been ascribed to them;
" because," says the cardinal, " general councils being liable
to err in questions of fact, we have the best grounds for
asserting that the sixth council was mistaken with regard to
the fact now under consideration; and that, misconceiving
the sense of the Letters of Honorius, it has placed this pope
Most unjustly in the ranks of heretics." Observe, then, I

'• The Monolhelites, who arose in the seventh century, were so called
from holding that there was but one vritt in Christ, his human will being
absorbed, as it were, in the divine.

•
436 PROVING: *L LETTERS.

pray you, father, that a man is not heretical for saying that
Pope Houorius was not a heretic; even though a great many
popes and councils, after examining his writings, should have
declared that he was so.

I now come to the question before us, and shall allow you
to state your case as favorably as you can. What will you
then say, father, in order to stamp your opponents as heretics ?
That " Pope Innocent X. has declared that the error of the
Qve propositions is to be found in Jansenius ?" I grant you
that; what inference do you draw from it? That "it is
heretical to deny that the error of the five propositions is to
be found in Jansenius ?" How so, father ? have we not here
a question of fact exactly similar to the preceding examples ?
The pope has declared that the error of the five propositions
is contained in Jausenius, in the same way as his predecessors
decided that the errors of the Nestoriaus and the Monothe-
lites polluted the pages of Theodoret and Honorius. In the
latter case, your writers hesitate not to say, that while they
condemn the heresies, they do not allow that these authors
actually maintained them; and, in like manner, your oppo-
nents now say, that they condemn the five propositions, but
cannot admit that Jansenius has taught them. Truly, the
two cases are as like as they could well be; and if there be
any disparity between them, it is easy to see how far it must
go in favor of the present question, by a comparison of many
particular circumstances, which, as they are self-evident, I do
not specify. How comes it to pass, then, that when placed
in precisely the same predicament, your friends are Catholics
and your opponents heretics ? On what strange principle
of exception do you deprive the latter of a liberty which you
freely award to all the rest of the faithful ? What answer
will you make to this, father ? Will you say, " The pope
nas confirmed his constitution by a brief." To this I would
reply, that two general councils and two popes confirmed the
sondemnation of the letters of Honorius. But what argu
ment do you found upon the language of that brief, in which
all that the pope says is, that " he has condemned the doo

THE POPE DECEIVED. 437

trine of Janseuius in these five propositions ?" What does
that add to the constitution, or what more can you infer from
it ? Nothing, certainly, except that as the sixth council con-
demned the doctrine of Honorius, in the belief that it was the
game with that of the Monothelites, so the pope has said
that he has condemned the doctrine of Jansenius in these five
propositions, because he was led to suppose it was the same
with that of the five propositions. And how could he do
otherwise than suppose it ? Your Society published nothing
else; and you yourself, father, who have asserted that the
said propositions were in that author " word for word," hap-
pened to be in Rome (for I know all your motions) at the
time when the censure was passed. Was he to distrust the
sincerity or the competence of so many grave ministers of
religion ? And how could he help being convinced of the
fact, after the assurance which you had given him that the
propositions were in that author '; word for word ?" It is
evident, therefore, that in the event of its being found that
Jansenius has not supported these doctrines, it would be
wrong to say, as your writers have done in the cases before
mentioned, that the pope has deceived himself in this point of
fact, which it is painful and offensive to publish at any time;
the proper phrase is, that you have deceived the pope, which,
as you are now pretty well known, will create no scandal.

Determined, however, to have a heresy made out, let it
tost what it may, you have attempted, by the following ma-
noeuvre, to shift the question from the point of fact, and
make it bear upon a point of faith. "The- pope," say you,
" declares that he has condemned the doctrine of Jansenius
in these five propositions; therefore it is essential to the
faith to hold that the doctrine of Jansenius touching these
five propositions is heretical, let it be what it may." Here is
a strange point of faith, that a doctrine is heretical be what
\l may. What ! if Jansenius ?hould happen to maintain that
\ce are capable, .of resisting internal grace," and that " it is
false to say that Jesus Christ died for the elect only," would
this doctrine V,o condemned just because it is his doctrine ?

438 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

Will the proposition, that " man has a freedom of will to da
good or evil," be true when found in the pope's constitution,
and false when discovered in Jansenius ? By what fatality
must he be reduced to such a predicament, that truth, when
admitted into his book, becomes heresy ? You must confess,
then, that he is only heretical on the supposition that he is
friendly to the errors condemned, seeing that the constitution
of the pope is the rule which we must apply to Jansenius, to
judge if his character answer the description there given of
him ; and, accordingly, the question, Is his doctrine heretical ?
must be resolved by another question of fact, Does it cor~
respond to the natural sense of these propositions ? as it must
necessarily be heretical if it does correspond to that sense,
and must necessarily be orthodox if it be of an opposite
character. For, in one word, since, according to the pope
and the bishops, " the propositions are condemned in theif
proper and natural sense" they cannot possibly be condemned
in the sense of Jansenius, except on the understanding that
the sense of Jansenius is the same with the proper and natu-
ral sense of these propositions; and this I maintain to be
purely a question of fact.

The question, then, still rests upon the point of fact, and
cannot possibly be tortured into one affecting the faith. But
though incapable of twisting it into a matter of heresy, you
have it in your power to make it a pretext for persecution,
and might, perhaps, succeed in this, were there not good
reason to hope that nobody will be found so blindly devoted
to your interests as to countenance such a disgraceful pro-
ceeding, or inclined to compel people, as you wish to do, to
eign a declaration that they condemn these propositions in the
sense of Jansenius, without explaining what the sense of Jan-
senius is. Few people are disposed to sign a blank confes-
sion of faith. Now this would really be to sign one of that
description, leaving you to fill up the blank afterwards with
whatsoever you pleased, as you would be at liberty to inter-
pret according to your own taste the unexplained sense of
Jansenius. Let it be explained, then, beforehand, otherwise

THE GRAND OBJECT OF THE JESUITS. 439

we shall have, I fear, another version of your proximate power,
without any sense at all — abstrahendo ab omni sensu.} This
mode of proceeding, you must be aware, does not take with
the world. Men in. general detest all ambiguity, especially
in the matter of religion, where it is highly reasonable that
one should know at least what one is asked to condemn.
And how is it possible for doctors, who are persuaded that
Jansenius can bear no other sense than that of efficacious
grace, to consent to declare that they condemn his doctrine
without explaining it, since, with their present convictions,
which no means are used to alter, this would be neither more
nor less than to condemn efficacious grace, which cannot be
condemned without sin ? Would it not, therefore, be a piece
of monstrous tyranny to place them in such au unhappy
dilemma, that they must either bring guilt upon their souls
in the sight of God, by signing that condemnation against
their consciences, or be denounced as heretics for refusing to
sign it ? *

But there is a mystery under all this. You Jesuits can-
not move a step without a stratagem. It remains for me to
explain why you do not explain the sense of Jansenius. The
sole purpose of my writing is to discover your designs, and,
by discovering, to frustrate them. I must, therefore, inform
those who are not already aware of the fact, that your great
concern in this dispute being to uphold the sufficient grace of
your Molina, you could not effect this without destroying the
tjficacious grace which stands directly opposed to it. Per-
teiving, however, that the latter was now sanctioned at
Rome, and by all the learned in the Church, and unable to
combat the doctrine on its own merits, you resolved to attack
it in a clandestine way, under the name of the doctrine of
Jansenius. You were resolved, accordingly, to get Janseniua
condemned without explanation ; and, to gain your purpose,
gave out that his doctrine was not that of efficacious grace,

1 See Letter i., p. 152.

2 The persecution here supposed was soon lamentably realized, and
exactly in the way which our author seemed to think impossible.

440 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

BO that every one might think he was at liberty to condemn
the one without denying the other. Hence yonr efforts, in
the present day, to impress this idea upon the minds of such
as have no acquaintance with that author; an object which
you yourself, father, have attempted, by means of the fol-
lowing ingenious syllogism : " The pope has condemned the
doctrine of Janseuius; but the pope has not condemned effi-
cacious grace : therefore, the doctrine of efficacious grace
must be different from that of Jansenius.'" If this mode of
reasoning were conclusive, it might be demonstrated in the
same way that Honorius and all his defenders are heretics
of the same kind. " The sixth council has condemned the
doctrine of Honorius ; but the council has not condemned the
doctrine of the Church : therefore the doctrine of Honorius
is different from that of the Church ; and therefore all who
defend him are heretics." It is obvious that no conclusion
can be drawn from this ; for the pope has done no more than
condemned the doctrine of the five propositions, which was
represented to him as the doctrine of Jansenius.

But it matters not ; you have no intention to make use
of this logic for any length of time. Poor as it is, it will last
sufficiently long to serve your present turn. All that you
wish to effect by it, in the mean time, is to induce those who
are unwilling to condemn efficacious grace to condemn Jan-
senius with the less scruple. When this object has been
Accomplished, your argument will soon be forgotten, and
their signatures remaining as an eternal testimony in condem-
nation of Jansenius, will furnish you with an occasion to make
a direct attack upon efficacious grace, by another mode of
reasoning much more solid than the former, which shall be
forthcoming in proper time. " The doctrine of Jansenius,"
you will argue, " has been condemned by the universal sul>
scriptions of the Church. Now this doctrine is manifestly
that of efficacious grace " (and it will be easy for you to prove
that); "therefore the doctrine, of efficacious grace is COD
demned even by the confession of his defenders."

i Cavill, p. 23.

THE GRAND OBJECT OF THE JESUITS. 441

Behold your reason for proposing to sign the condemnation
s>f a doctrine without giving an explanation of it I Behold
the advantage you expect to gain from subscriptions thus
procured 1 Should your opponents, however, refuse to sub-
scribe, you have another trap laid for them. Having dexter-
ously combined the question of faith with that of fact, and
not allowing them to separate between them, nor to sign the
•)ne without the other, the consequence will be, that, because
they could not subscribe the two together, you will publish
it in all directions that they have refused the two together.
And thus though, in point of fact, they simply decline ac-
knowledging that Jansenius has maintained the propositions
which they condemn, which cannot be called heresy, you
will boldly assert that they have refused to condemn the
propositions themselves, and that it is this that constitutes
their heresy.

Such is the fruit which you expect to reap from their re-
fusal, and which will be no less useful to you than what you
might have gained from their consent. So that, in the event
of these signatures being exacted, they will fall into your
snares, whether they sign or not, and in both cases you will
gain your point; sucL is your dexterity in uniformly putting
matters into a train for your own advantage, whatever bias
they may happen to take in their course !

How well I know you, father ! and how grieved am I to
see that God has abandoned you so far as to allow you such
bappy success in such an unhappy course ! Your good for-
tune deserves commiseration, and can excite envy only in the
ureasts of those who know not what truly good fortune is.
It is an act of charity to thwart the success you aim at in the
whole of this proceeding, seeing that you can only reach it
by the aid of falsehood, and by procuring credit to one of
two lies — either that the Church has condemned efficacious
grace, or that those who defend that doctrine maintain the
five condemned errors.

The world must, therefore, be auprized of two facts: First,
That, by your own confession, efficacious grace has not been

442 FROVIN( I A I- LETTERS.

condemned ; and secondly, That nobody supports these er-
rors. So that it may be known that those who may refuse
to sign what you are so anxious to exact from them, refuse
merely in consideration of the question of fact ; and that,
being quite ready to subscribe that of faith, they cannot he
deemed heretical on that account ; because, to repeat it once
more, though it be matter of faith to believe these proposi-
tions to be heretical, it will never be matter of faith to hold
that they are to be found in the pnges of Jansenius. They
are innocent of all error ; that is enough. It may be that
they interpret Jansenius too favorably ; but it may be also
that you do not interpret him favorably enough. I do not
enter upon this question. All that I know is, that, according
to your maxims, you believe tnat you may, without sin, pub-
lish him to be a heretic contrary to your own knowledge ;
whereas, according to their maxims, they cannot, without
sin, declare him to be a Catholic, unless they are persuaded
that he is one. They are, therefore, more honest than you,
father ; they have examined Jansenius more faithfully than
you ; they are no less intelligent than you ; they are, there-
fore, no less credible witnesses than you. But come what
may of this point of fact, they are certainly Catholics ; for, in
order to be so, it is not necessary to declare that another
man is not a Catholic ; it is enough, in all conscience, if a
person, without charging error upon anybody else, succeed
in discharging himself.

Reverend father, — If you have found any difficulty in de-
ciphering this letter, which is certainly not printed in the
best possible type, blame nobody but yourself. Privileges
are not so easily granted to me as they are to you. You can
procure them even for the purpose of combating miracles ; I
cannot have them even to defend myself. The printing-
houses are perpetually haunted. In such circumstances, you
yourself would not advise me to writf: you any more letters

APOLOGY FOR BAD PRINTING. 443

for it is really a sad annoyance to be obliged to have recourse
to an Osnabruck impression.1

1 This postscript, which is wanting in the ordinary editions, appeared
in the first edition at the close of this letter. From this it appears that,
in consequence of the extreme desire of the Jesuits to discover the au-
thor, and their increasing resentment against him, he was compelled to
send this letter to Osnabruck, an obscure place in Germany, where it
was printed in a very small and indistinct character. The privileges
referred to were official licenses to print books, which, at this time when
the Jesuits were in power, it was difficult for their opponents to obtain.
Annat had published against the miracles of Port-Royal. Pascal was
not permitted to publish in self-defence. At the same period, no Prot-
sstant books could be printed at Paris ; they were generally sent to
Geneva or the Low Countries for this purpose, or published furtively
under fictitious names.

LETTER XVIII.

TO THE REVEREND FATHER ANNAT, JESUIT.

SHOWING STILL MORE PLAINLY, ON THE AUTHORITY OF FATHER AN-
NAT HIMSELF, THAT THERE IS REALLY NO HERESY IN THE CHURCH,
AND THAT IN QUESTIONS OF FACT WE MUST BE GUIDED BY OUB
SENSES, AND NOT BY AUTHORITY EVEN OF THE POPES.

March 24, 1657.

REVEREND FATHER, — Long have you labored to discover
some error in the creed or conduct of your opponents; but I
rather think you will have to confess, in the end, that it is a
more difficult task than you imagined to make heretics of
people who are not only no heretics, but who hate nothing
in the world so much as heresy. In my last letter 1 suc-
ceeded in showing that you accuse them of one heresy after
another, without being able to stand by one of the charges
for any length of tune; so that all that remained for you
was to fix on their refusal to condemn " the sense of Jansen-
jus," which you insist on their doing without explanation.
You must have been sadly in want of heresies to brand them
with, when you were reduced to this. For who ever heard
of a heresy which nobody could explain ? The answer was
ready, therefore, that if Jansenius has no errors, it is wrong
o condemn him ; and if he has, you were bound to point
them out, that we might know at least what we were con-
demning. This, however, yon have never yet been pleased
to do ; but you have attempted to fortify your position by
decrees,1 which made nothing in your favor, as they gave nc
sort of explanation of the sense of Jansenius, said to have

i Decrees of the pope.

THE SENSE OF JAXSEXIUS. 445

been condemned in the five propositions. This was cot the
way to terminate the dispute. Had you mutually agreed as
to the genuine sense of Jansenius, and had the only difference
between you been as to whether that sense was heretical or
not, in that case the decisions which might pronounce it to
be heretical, would have touched the real question in dispute.
But the great dispute being about the sense of Jansenius, the
one party saying that they could see nothing in it inconsistent
with the sense of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and the
other party asserting that they saw in it an heretical sense
which they would not express. It is clear that a constitution1
which does not say a word about this difference of opinion,
and which only condemns in general and without explana-
tion the sense of Jansenius, leaves the point in dispute quite
undecided.

You have accordingly been repeatedly told, that as your
discussion turns on a matter of fact, you would never be able
to bring it to a conclusion without declaring what you under-
stand by the sense of Jansenius. But, as you continued ob-
stinate in your refusal to make this explanation, I endeavored,
as a last resource, to extort it from you, by hinting, in my
last letter, that there was some mystery under the efforts you
were making to procure the condemnation of this sense with-
out explaining it, and that your design was to make this in-
definite censure recoil some day or other, upon the doctrine
of efficacious grace, by showing, as you could easily do, that
this was exactly the doctrine of Jansenius. This has reduced
you to the necessity of making a reply; for, had you pertina-
ciously refused, after such an insinuation, to explain your
views of that sense, it would have been apparent, to persons
of the smallest penetration, that you condemned it in the
sense of efficacious grace — a conclusion which, considering the
veneration in which the Church holds holy doctrine, would
have overwhelmed you with disgrace.

You have, therefore, been forced to speak out your mind;
and we find it expressed in your reply to that part of my let-

1 The papa! constitution formerly referred to.

*46 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

ter in which I remarked, that " if Jansenius was capable of
any other sense than that of efficacious grace, he had no de-
fenders; but if his writings bore no other sense, he had uo
errors to defend." You found it impossible to deny this po-
sition, father; but you have attempted to parry it by the fol-
lowing distinction : " It is not sufficient," say you, " for the
vindication of Jansenius, to allege that he merely holds the
doctrine of efficacious grace, for that may be held in two ways
— the one heretical, according to Calvin, which consists in
maintaining that the will, when under the influence of grace,
Las not the power of resisting it ; the other orthodox, accord-
ing to the Thomists and the Sorbonists, which is founded on
the principles established by the councils, and which is, that
efficacious grace of itself governs the will in such a way that
it still has the power of resisting it."

All this we grant, father; but you conclude by adding :
" Jansenius would be orthodox, if he defended efficacious
grace in the sense of the Thomists; but he is heretical, be-
cause he opposes the Thomists, and joins issue with Calvin,
who denies the power of resisting grace." I do not here enter
upon the question of fact, whether Jansenius really agrees
with Calvin. It is enough for my purpose that you assert
that he does, and that you now inform me that by the sense
of Janseuius you have all along understood nothing more than
the sense of Calvin. Was this all you meant, then, father ?
Was it only the error of Calvin that you were so anxious to
get condemned, under the name of " the sense of Jansenius ?"
Why did you not tell us this sooner ? You might have -aved
yourself a world of trouble, ; for we were all ready, without
the aid of bulls or briefs, to join with yon in condemning
that error. What urgent necessity there was for such an ex-
planation ! What a host of difficulties has it removed ! We
were quite at a loss, my dear father, to know what error the
popes and bishops meant to condemn, under the name of
" the sense of Jansenius." The whole Church was in the ut-
most perplexity about it, and not a soul would relieve us by
en explanation. This, however, has now been done by you

RESIST1BILITY OF GRACE. 441

father — you, whom the whole of your party regard as the
chief and prime mover of all their councils, and who are ac-
quainted with the whole secret of this proceeding. You,
then, have told us that the sense of Jansenius is neither more
nor less than the sense of Calvin, which has been condemned
by the council.1 Why, this explains everything. We know
now that the error which they intended to condemn, under
these terms — the. sense of Jansenius — is neither more nor less
than the sense of Calvin; and that, consequently, we, by join-
ing with them in the condemnation of Calvin's doctrine, have
yielded all due obedience to these decrees. We are no longer
surprised at the zeal which the popes and some bishops mani-
fested against " the sense of Jansenius." How, indeed, could
they be otherwise than zealous against it, believing, as they
did, the declarations of those who publicly affirmed that it
was identically the same with that of Calvin ?

I must maintain, then, father, that you have no further
reason to quarrel with your adversaries; for they detest that
doctrine as heartily as you do. I am only astonished to see
that you are ignorant of this fact, and that you have such an
imperfect acquaintance with their sentiments on this point,
which they have so repeatedly expressed in their published
works. I flatter myself that, were you more intimate with
these writings, you would deeply regret your not having made
yourself acquainted sooner, in the spirit of peace, with a doc-
trine which is in every respect so holy and so Christian, but
which passion, in the absence of knowledge, now prompts you
to oppose. You would find, father, that they not only hold
that an effective resistance may be made to those feebler
graces which go under the name of wdting or inefficacious,
from their not terminating in the good with which they in-
spire us; but that they are, moreover, as firm in maintaining,
in opposition to Calvin, the power which the will has to re-
sist even efficacious and victorious grace, as they are in con-
tending against Molina for the power of this grace over the

1 The Council of Trent is meant, when Pascal speaks of the council,
without any other specification.

448 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

will, and fully as jealous for the one of these truths as they
Ere for the other. They know too well that man, of his own
nature, has always the power of sinning and of resisting
grace; and that, since he became corrupt, he unhappily car-
ries in his breast a fount of concupiscence which infinitely
augments that power ; but that, notwithstanding this, when
it pleases God to visit him with his mercy, he makes the soul
do what he wills, and in the manner he wills it to be done,
while, at the same time, the infallibility of the divine opera-
tion does not in any way destroy the natural liberty of man,
in consequence of the secret and wonderful ways by which
God operates this change. This has been most admirably
explained by St. Augustine, in such a way as to dissipate all
those imaginary inconsistencies which the opponents of effica-
cious grace suppose to exist between the sovereign power of
grace over the free-will and the power which the free-will
has to resist grace. For, according to this great saint, whom
the popes and the Church have held to be a standard author-
ity on this subject, God transforms the heart of man, by shed-
ding abroad in it a heavenly sweetness, which, surmounting
the delights of the flesh, and inducing him to feel, on the one
hand, his own mortality and nothingness, and to discover, on
the other hand, the majesty and eternity of God, makes him
conceive a distaste for the pleasures of sin, which interpose
between him and incorruptible happiness. Finding his chief-
est joy in the God who charms him, his soul :s drawn to-
wards him infallibly, but of its own accord, by a motion per-
fectly free, spontaneous, love-impelled; so that it would be
its torment and punishment to be separated from him. Not
but that the person has always the power of forsaking his
God, and that he may not actually forsake him, provided he
choose to do it. But how could he choose such a course,
seeing that the will always inclines to that which is most
agreeable to it, and that in the case we now suppose, nothing
can be more agreeable than the possession of that one good,
which comprises in itself all other good things. " Quod
tnim (says St. Augustine) amplius nos ddectat, secundum

KESISTIUILITY OF GRACE. 'M 9

yperemur ncctsse est — Our actions are necessarily determined
jy that which affords us the greatest pleasure."

Such is the manner in which God regulates the free will
of man without encroaching on its freedom, and in which the
free will, which always may, but never will, resist his grace,
turns to God with a movement as voluntary as it is irresisti-
ble, whensoever he is pleased to draw it to himself by the
sweet constraint of his efficacious inspirations.'

These, father, are the divine principles of St. Augustine
and St. Thomas, according to which it is equally true that
we Jiave the power of resisting grace, contrary to Calvin's
opinion, and that, nevertheless, to employ the language of
Pope Clement VIII. , in his paper addressed to the Congre-
gation de Anxiliis, " God forms within us the motion of our
will, and effectually disposes of our hearts, by virtue of that
empire which his supreme majesty has over the volitions of
men, as well as over the other creatures under heaven, ac-
cording to St. Augustine."

On the same principle, it follows that we act of ourselves,
and thus, in opposition to another error of Calvin, that we
have merits which are truly and properly ours ; and yet, as
God is the first principle of our actions, and as, in the lan-
guage of St. Paul, he " worketh in us that which is pleasing
in his sight •" " our merits are the gifts of God," as the

O tj

Council of Trent says.

By means of this distinction we demolish the profane sen-
timent of Luther, condemned by that Council, namely, that
" we co-operate in no way whatever towards our salvation,
any more than inanimate things;"2 and, by the same mode
jf reasoning, we overthrow the equally profane sentiment of
the school of Molina, who will not allow that it is by the
strength of divine grace that we are enabled to co-operate
w;th it in the work of our salvation, and who thereby comes

1 The reader ma" veil be at a loss to see the difference between this
und the Reformed doctrine. Sonic explanations will be found in the
Historical Introduction.

2 This sentiment was falsely ascribed to Luther by the Council
'^eydeck, De Pogm. Jan. 275.)

450 PROVINCIAL LETTERS

into hostile collision with that principle of faith established
by St. Paul, " That it is God who worketh in us both to will
aud to do."

In fine, in this way we reconcile all those passages of
Scripture which seem quite inconsistent with each other,
such as the following : "Turn ye unto God" — " Turn thon
us, and we shall be turned " — " Cast away iniquity from you •"
— " It is God who taketh away iniquity from his people " —
' Bring forth works meet for repentance " — " Lord, thou hast
wrought all our works in us " — " Make ye a new heart and a
new spirit " — " A new spirit will I give you, and a new heart
will I create within you," &c.

The only way of reconciling these apparent contrarieties,
which ascribe our good actions at one time to God, and at
another time to ourselves, is to keep in view the distinction,
as stated by St. Augustine, that " our actions are ours in re-
spect of the free will which produces them; but that they
are also of God, in respect of his grace which enables our
free will to produce them;" and that, as the same writer
elsewhere remarks, " God enables us to do what is pleasing
in his sight, by making us will to do even what we might
have been unwilling to do."

It thus appears, father, that your opponents are perfectly
at one with the modern Thomists, for the Thomists hold,
with them, both the power of resisting grace, aud the infalli-
bility of the effect of grace; of which latter doctrine they
profess themselves the most strenuous advocates, if we may
judge from a common maxim of their theology, which Al-
varez,1 one of the leading men among them, repeats so often
in his book, and expresses in the following terms (disp. 72,
u. 4): " When efficacious grace moves the free will, it infal-

1 Diego (or Didacus) Alvarez was one of the most celebrated theolo-
gians of tht order of 8t. Dominick ; he flourished in the sixteenth and
leventeenth centuries, and died in 1635. He was brought from Spain
to Rome, to advocate there, along with Father Thomas Lemos, the causa
of the grace of Jesus Christ, which the Jesuit Molina weakened, and in-
deed annihilated. He shone greatly in the famous Congregation de A\u>
'Hi*. (Nicole's Note.)

GRACE AND FREE-WILL. 451

[ibly consents; because the effect of grace is such, that, al-
though the will has the power of withholding its conseut, it
nevertheless consents in effect." He corroborates this by a
quotation from his master, St. Thomas: " The will of God
cannot fail to be accomplished; and, accordingly, when it is
his pleasure that a man should consent to the influence of
grace, he consents infallibly, and even necessarily, not by an
absolute necessity, but by a necessity of infallibility." In
effecting this, divine grace does not trench upon " the powei
which man has to resist it, if he wishes to do so;" it merely
prevents him from wishing to resist it. This has been ac-
knowledged by your Father Petau, in the following passage
(torn. i. p. 602): " The grace of Jesus Christ insures infalli-
ble perseverance in piety, though not by necessity ; for a
person may refuse to yield his consent to grace, if he be so
inclined, as the council states; but that same grace provides
that he shall never be so inclined."

This, father, is the uniform doctrine of St. Augustine, of
St. Prosper, of the fathers who followed them, of the coun-
cils, of St. Thomas, and of all the Thomists in general. It
is likewise, whatever you may think of it, the doctrine of
your opponents. And let me add, it is the doctrine which
you yourself have lately sealed with your approbation. I
shall quote your own words: " The doctrine of efficacious
grace, which admits that we have a power of resisting it, is
orthodox, founded on the councils, and supported by the
Thomists and Sorbonists." Now, tell us the plain truth,
father; if you had known that your opponents really held
this doctrine, the interests of your Society might perhaps
have made you scruple before pronouncing this public ap-
proval of it; but, acting on the supposition that they were
hostile to the doctrine, the same powerful motive has induced
you to authorize sentiments which you know in your heart to
be contrary to those of your Society; and by this blunder,
in your anxiety to ruin their principles, you have yourself
rompletely confirmed them. So that,, by a kind of prodigy,
we now behold the advocates of efficacious grace vindicated

452 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

by the advocates of Molina — an admirable instance of the
wisdom of God in making all things concur to advance the
glory of the truth.

Let the whole world observe, then, that by your own ad-
mission, the truth of this efficacious grace, which is so essen-
tial to all the acts of piety, which is so dear to the Church,
and which is the purchase of her Saviour's blood, is so indis-
putably Catholic, that there is not a single Catholic, not even
among the Jesuits, who would not acknowledge its ortho-
doxy. And let it be noticed, at the same tune, that, accord-
ing to your own confession, not the slightest suspicion of
error can fall on those whom you have so often stigmatized
with it. For so long as you charged them with clandestine
heresies, without choosing to specify them by name, it was
as difficult for them to defend themselves, as it was easy for
you to bring such accusations. But now, when you have
come to declare that the error which constrains you to op-
pose them, is the heresy of Calvin which you supposed them
to hold, it must be apparent to every one that they are inno-
cent of all error; for so decidedly hostile are they to this,
the only error you charge upon them, that they protest, by
their discourses, by their books, by every mode, in short, in
which they can testify their sentiments, that they condemn
that heresy with their whole heart, and in the same manner
as it has been condemned by the Thomists, whom you ac-
knowledge, without scruple, to be Catholics, and who have
never been suspected to be anything else.

What will you say against them now, father ? Will you
say that they are heretics still, because, although they do
not adopt the sense of Calvin, they will not allow that the
Bense of Jansenius is the same with that of Calvin ? Will
you presume to say that this is matter of heresy ? Is it not
a pure question of fact, with which heresy has nothing to
do ? It would be heretical to say that we have not the puwer
of resisting efficacious grace; but would it be so to doubt
that Janseuius held that doctrine ? Is this a revealed truth ?
IB it au article of faith which must be believed, on pain of

JANSENIUS NO HERETIC. 4^3

damnation ? or is it not, in spite of you, a point of fact, on
account of which it would be ridiculous to hold that there
were heretics in the Church.

Drop this epithet, then, father, and give them some other
name, more suited to the nature of your dispute. Tell them,
they are ignorant and stupid — that they misunderstand Jan-
eenius. These would be charges in keeping with your con-
troversy; but it is quite irrelevant to call them heretics. As
this, however, is the only charge from which I am anxious to
defend them, I shall not give myself much trouble to show
that they rightly understand Jansenius. All I shall say on
the point, father, is, that it appears to me that were he to be
judged according to your own rules, it would be difficult tf
prove him not to be a good Catholic. We shall try him by
the test you have proposed. " To know," say you, " whether
Jansenius is sound or not, we must inquire whether he de-
fends efficacious grace in the manner of Calvin, who denies
that man has the power of resisting it — in which case he
would be heretical; or in the manner of the Thoinists, who
admit that it may be resisted — for then he would be Catho-
lic." Judge, then, father, whether he holds that grace may
be resisted, when he says, " That we have always a power to
resist grace, according to the council, that free will may al-
ways act or not act, will or not will, consent or not consent,
do good or do evil; and that man, in this life, has always
these two liberties, which may be called by some contradic-
tions." 2 Judge, likewise, if he be not opposed to the error
of Calvin, as you have described it, when he occupies a whole
chapter (21st) in showing " that the Church has condemned
that heretic who denies that efficacious grace acts on the free
will in the manner which has been so long believed in the
Church, so as to leave it in the power of free will to consent
or not to consent; whereas, according to St. Augustine and
the council, we have aiways the power of withholding our
sonsent if we choose; and according to St. Prosper, God be*

• His Treatise passim, and particularly torn. 3. 1, 8, o. 20.

454 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

etows even upon bis elect the will to persevere, in such a way
as not to deprive them of the power to will the contrary."
And, in one word, judge if he do not agree with the
Thomists, from the following declaration in chapter 4th :
" That all that the Thomists have written with the view of
reconciling the efficaciousness of grace with the power of
resisting it, so entirely coincides with his judgment, that to
ascertain his sentiments on this subject, we have only to con-
sult their writings."

Such being the language he holds on these heads, my
opinion is, that he believes in the power of resisting grace ;
that he differs from Calvin, and agrees with the Thomists,
because he has said so ; and that he is, therefore, according
to your own showing, a Catholic. If you have any means
of knowing the sense of an author otherwise than by his ex-
pressions ; and if, without quoting any of his passages, you
are disposed to mainkiin, in direct opposition to his own
words, that he denies this power of resistance, and that he is
for Calvin and against the Thomists, do not be afraid, father,
that I will accuse you of heresy for that. 1 shall only say,
that you do not seem properly to understand Jansenius ; but
we shall not be the less on that account children of the same
Church.

How comes it, then, father, that you manage this dispute
in such a passionate spirit, and that you treat as your most
cruel enemies, and as the most pestilent of heretics, a class
of persons whom you cannot accuse of any error, nor of any-
thing whatever, except that they do not understand Jansenius
as you do ? For what else in the world do you dispute
about, except the sense of that author ? You would have
them to condemn it. They ask what you mean them to con-
demn. You reply, that you mean the error of Calvin. They
rejoin that they condemn that error; and with this acknow-
ledgment (unless it is syllables you wish to condemn, and
aot the thing which they signify), you ought to rest satisfied.
If they refuse to say that they condemn the sense of Jan-
senius. it is because they believe it to be that of St. Thomas,

THE JANSKNISTS GOOD CATHOLICS. 455

and thus this unhappy phrase has a very equivocal meaning
betwixt you. In your mouth it signifies the sense of Calvin ;
in theirs the sense of St. Thomas. Your dissensions arise
entirely from the different ideas which you attach to the
same term. Were I made umpire in the quarrel, I would
interdict the use of the word Jansenius, on both sides; and
thus, by obliging you merely to express what you understand
by it, it would be seen that you ask nothing more than the
condemnation of Calvin, to which they willingly agree ; and
that they ask nothing more than the vindication of the sense
of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, in which you again per-
fectly coincide.

I declare, then, father, that for my part I shall continue to
regard them as good Catholics, whether they condemn Jan-
senius, on finding him erroneous, or refuse to condemn him,
from finding that he maintains nothing more than what you
yourself acknowledge to be orthodox ; and that I shall say
to them what St. Jerome said to John, bishop of Jerusalem,
who was a« cused of holding the eight propositions of Origen :
" Either condemn Origen, if you acknowledge that he has
maintained these errors, or else deny that he has maintained
them — Aut nega hoc dixisse eum qui arguitur ; aut si locutus
eat talia, eum damna qui dixerit."

See, father, how these persons acted, whose sole concern
was with principles, and not with persons ; whereas you
who aim at persons more than principles, consider it a mat-
ter of no consequence to condemn errors, unless you procure
the condemnation of the individuals to whom you choose to
impute them.

How ridiculously violent your conduct is, father ! and how
ill calculated to insure success ! I told you before, and T
repeat it, violence and verity can make no impression on each
Dther. Never were your accusations more outrageous, and
never was the innocence of your opponents more discernible :
never has efficacious grace been attacked with greater sub-
tility, and never has it been more triumphantly established.
You have made the most desperate efforts to convince peo-

456 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

pie that your disputes involved points of faith ; and nerer
was it more apparent that the whole controversy turned upon
a mere point of fact. In fine, you have moved heaven and
earth to make it appear that this point of fact is founded on
truth; and never were people more disposed to call it in
question. And the obvious reason of this is, that you do not
take the natural course to make them believe a point of fact,
which is to convince their senses, and point out to them in a
book the words which you allege are to be found in it. The
means you have adopted are so far removed from this
straightforward course, that the most obtuse minds are un-
avoidably struck by observing it. Why did you not take
the plan which I followed in bringing to light the wicked
maxims of your authors — which was to cite faithfully the
passages of their writings from which they were extracted ?
This was the mode followed by the cures of Paris, and it
never fails to produce conviction. But, when you were
charged by them with holding, for example, the proposition
of Father Lamy, that a " monk may kill a person who threat-
ens to publish calumnies against himself or his order, when
he cannot otherwise prevent the publication," — what would
you have thought, and what would the public have said, if
they had not quoted the place where that sentiment is literally
to be found ? or if, after having been repeatedly demanded
to quote their authority, they still obstinately refused to do
it? or if, instead of acceding to this, they had gone off' to
Rome, and procured a bull, ordaining all men to acknowl-
edge the truth of thoir statement ? Would it not be un-
doubtedly concluded that they had surprised the pope, and
that they would never have had recourse to this extraordi-
nary method, but for want of the natural meuns of substan-
tiating the truth, which matters of fact furnish to all who
undertake to prove them ? Accordingly, they had no more
to do than to tell us that Father Lamy teaches this doctrine
in tome b, disp. 36, n. 118, paye 544, of the Douay edition ;
and by this means everybody who wishe 1 to see it found it out,
and nobody could doubt about it any longer. This appears

POPES MAY BE SURPRISED. 457

to be a very easy and prompt way of putting an end to con-
troversies of fact, when one has got the right side of the
question.

How comes it, then, father, that you do not follow this
plan ? You said, in your book, that the five propositions are
in Jansenius, word for wordj in the identical terms — iisder*
verbis. You were told they were not. What had you to d
after this, but either to cite the page, if you had really found
the words, or to acknowledge that you were mistaken. But
you have done neither the one nor the other. In place of
this, on finding that all the passages from Jansenius, which
you sometimes adduce for the purpose of hoodwinking the
people, are not " the condemned propositions in their indivi-
dual identity," as you had engaged to show us, you present
us with Constitutions from Rome, which, without specifying
any particular place, declare that the propositions have been
extracted from his book.

I- am sensible, father, of the respect which Christians owe
to the Holy See, and your antagonists give sufficient evidence
of their resolution ever to abide by its decisions. Do not
imagine that it implied any deficiency in this due deference
on their part, that they represented to the pope, with all the
submission which children owe to their father, and members
to their head, that it was possible he might be deceived on
this point of fact — that he had not caused it to be investi-
gated during his pontificate; and that his predecessor, In-
nocent X., had merely examined into the heretical character
of the propositions, and not into the fact of their connection
with Jansenius. This they stated to the commissary of the
Holy Office, one of the principal examinators, stating, that
they could not be censured, according to the sense of any
author, because they had been presented for examination on
their own merits; and without considering to what author
they might belong : further, that upwards of sixty doctors,
and a vast number of other persons of learning and piety, had
read that book carefully over, without ever having encoun«
tered the proscribed propositions, and that they have found
20

458 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

some of a quite opposite description : that those who had
produced that impression on the mind of the pope, might be
reasonably presumed to have abused the confidence he re-
posed in them, inasmuch as they had an interest in decrying
that author, who has convicted Molina of upwards of fifty
errors :' that what renders this supposition still more proba-
ble is, that they have a certain maxim among them, one of
the best authenticated in their whole system of theology,
which is, "that they may, without criminality, calumniate
those by whom they conceive themselves to be unjustly at-
tacked :" and that, accordingly, their testimony being so
suspicious, and the testimony of the other party so respecta-
ble, they had some ground for supplicating his holiness, with
the most profound humility, that he would ordain an investi-
gation to be made into this fact, in the presence of doctors
belonging to both parties, in order that a solemn and regular
decision might be formed on the point in dispute. " Let
there be a convocation of able judges (says St. Basil on a
similar occasion, Ep. 75) ; let each of them be left at perfect
freedom; let them examine my writings; let them judge if
they contain errors against the faith; let them read the ob-
iections and the replies; that so a judgment may be given
in due form, and with proper knowledge of the case, and not
a defamatory libel without examination."

It is quite vain for you, father, to represent those who
would act in the manner I have now supposed as deficient
in proper subjection to the Holy See. The popes are very
far from being disposed to treat Christians with that impe-

' " It may be proper here to give an explanation of the hatred of
the Jesuits against Jansenins. When the Augustinus of that author
was printed in 1640, Libertus Fromond, the celebrated professor of
Louvain, resolved to insert in the end of the book of his friend, who had
died two years before, a parallel between the doctrine of the Jesuits on
grace, and the errors of the Jlarseillois or denri-Felapiang. This \vaa
quite enough to raise the rancor of the Jesuits against Jansenius, whcra
they erroneously supposed was the author of that parallel. And as
the.«e fathers have long since erased from their code of morals the duty
of the forgiveness of injuries, they commenced their campaign agains*
the book of Jansenius in the Low Countries, by a large volume of Theo-
\ogical Theses (in folio, 1641), which are very singular productions.'
INote by Nicole.)

POPES MAY BE SURPRISED. 459

nousness which some would fain exercise under their name.
" The Church," says Pope St. Gregory,1 " which has been
trained in the school of humility, does not command with
authority, but persuades by reason, her children whom she
believes to be in error, to obey what she has taught them."
And so far from deeming it a disgrace to review a judgment
into which they may have been surprised, we have the testi-
mony of St. Bernard for saying that they glory in acknow-
ledging the mistake. " The Apostolic See (he says, Ep. 180)
can boast of this recommendation, that it never stands on
the point of honor, but willingly revokes a decision that has
been gained from it by surprise; indeed, it is highly just to
prevent any from profiting by an act of injustice, and more
especially before the Holy See."

Such, father, are the proper sentiments with which the
popes ought to be inspired ; for all divines are agreed that
they may be surprised,1 and that their supreme character,
so far from warranting them against mistakes, exposes them
the more readily to fall into them, on account of the vast
number of cares which claim their attention. This is what
the same St. Gregory says to some persons who were aston-
ished at the circumstance of another pope having suffered
himself to be deluded : " Why do you wonder," says he,
" that we should be deceived, we who are but men ? Have
you not read that David, a king who had the spirit of pro-
phecy, was induced, by giving credit to the falsehoods of
Ziba, to pronounce an unjust judgment against the sou of
Jonathan ? Who will think it strange, then, that we, who
are not piophets, should sometimes be imposed upon by de-
ceivers ? A multiplicity of affairs presses on us, and our
minds, which, by being obliged to attend to so many things
at once, apply themselves less closely to each in particular,
Are the more easily liable to be imposed upon in individual
cases."* Truly, father, I should suppose that the popes

1 On the Book of Job, lib. viii., cap. 1.

3 Surprise is the word used to ienote the case of the pope when tauen
ft unawares, or deceived by false accounts.
3 Lib. i., in Diai.

460 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

know better than you whether they may be deceived or not.
They themselves tell us tnat p- pes, as well as the greatest
princes, are more exposed to deception than individuals who
are less occupied with important avocations. This must be
believed on their testimony. And it is easy to imagine by
what means they come to be thus overreached. St. Bernard,
in the letter which he wrote to Innocent II., gives us the
following description of the process : " It is no wonder, and
no novelty, that the human mind may be deceived, and ia
deceived. You are surrounded by monks who come to you
in the spirit of lying and deceit. They have filled your ears
with stories against a bishop, whose life has been most ex-
emplary, but who is the object of their hatred. These per-
sons bite like dogs, and strive to make good appear evil.
Meanwhile, most holy father, you put yourself into a rage
against your own son. Why have you afforded matter of
joy to his enemies ? Believe not every spirit, but try the
spirits whether they be of God. I trust that, when you
have ascertained the truth, all this delusion, which rests on a
false report, will be dissipated. I pray the spirit of truth to
grant you the grace to separate light from darkness, and to
favor the good by rejecting the evil." You see, then, father,
that the eminent rank of the popes does not exempt them
from the influence of delusion ; and I may now add, that it
only serves to render their mistakes more dangerous and im-
portant than those of other men. This is the light in which
St. Bernard represents them to Pope Eugenius : " There is
another fault, so common among the great of this world, that
I never met one of them who was free from it; and that is,
holy father, an excessive credulity, the source of numerous
disorders. From this proceed violent persecutions against
the innocent, unfounded prejudices against the absent, and
tremendous storms about nothing (pro tuhilo). This, holj
lather, is a universal evil, from the influence of which, if you
are exempt, I shall only say, you are the only individual
among all your compeers who can boast of that privilege "
1 De Consid. lib. ii., c. nit.

POPES MAY BE SURPRISED. 4G1

I imagine, father, that the proofs I have brought are be-
/riming to convince you that the popes are liable to be sur-
prised. But, to complete your conversion, I shall merely
remind you of some examples, which you yourself have
quoted in your book, of popes and emperors whom heretics
have actually deceived. You will remember, then, that you
have told us that Apollinarius surprised Pope Damasius, iu
the same way that Celestius surprised Zozimus. You inform
as, besides, that one called Athanasius deceived the Emperor
Heraclius, and prevailed on him to persecute the Catholics.
And lastly, that Sergius obtained from Honorius that infa-
mous decretal which was burned at the sixth council, " by
playing the busy-body," as you say, " about the person of
that pope."

It appears, then, father, by your own confession, that those
who act this part about the persons of kings and popes, do
sometimes artfully entice them to persecute the faithful de-
fenders of the truth, under the persuasion that they are per-
secuting heretics. And hence the popes, who hold nothing
in greater horror than these surprisals, have, by a letter of
Alexander III., enacted an ecclesiastical statute, which is
,-nserted in the canonical law, to permit the suspension of the
execution of their bulls and decretals, when there is ground
tc suspect that they have been imposed upon. " If," says
that pope to the Archbishop of Ravenna, " we sometimes
«*end decretals to your fraternity which are opposed to your
entiments, give yourselves no distress on that account. We
nail expect you either to carry them respectfully into exe-
cution, or to send us the reason why you conceive they ought
not to be executed; for we deem it right that you should
not execute a decree which may have been procured from
us by artifice and surprise." Such has been the course pur-
sued by the popes, whose sole object is to settle the disputes
if Christians, and not to follow the passionate counsels of
those who strive to involve them in trouble and perplexity
Following the advice of St. Peter and St. Paul, wh^ la this
Allowed the commandment of Jesus Christ, tliLj avoid doui

402 PROVINCIAL LETTKRS.

iuation. The spirit which appears in their whole conduct is
that of peace and truth.' In this spirit they ordinarily in-
sert in their letters this clause, which is tacitly understood
hi them all — " Si ita est — si preces verilate nitantur — If it be
BO as we have heard it — if the facts be true." It is quite
clear, if the popes themselves give no force to their bulls,
except in so far as they are founded on genuine facts, that it
is not the bulls alone that prove the truth of the facts, but
that, on the contrary, even according to the canonists, it
is the truth of the facts which renders the bulls lawfully
admissible.

In what way, then, are we to learn the truth of facts ? It
must be by the eyes, father, which are the legitimate judges
of such matters, as reason is the proper judge of things
natural and intelligible, and faith of things supernatural and
revealed. For, since you will force me into this discussion,
you must allow me to tell you, that, according to the senti-
ments of the two greatest doctors of the Church, St. Augus-
tine and St. Thomas, these three principles of our knowledge
the senses, reason, and faith, have each their separate objects,
and their own degrees of certainty. And as God has been
pleased to employ the intervention of the senses to give en-
trance to faith (for " faith cometh by hearing"), it follows,
that so far from faith destroying the certainty of the senses,
to call in question the faithful report of the senses, would
lead to the destruction of faith. It is on this principle that
St. Thomas explicitly states that God has been pleased that
the sensible accidents should subsist in the eucharist, in order
that the senses, which judge only of these accidents, might
not be deceived.

We conclude, therefore, from this, that whatever the pro-
position may be that is submitted to our examination, we
must first determine its nature, to ascertain to which of those
three principles it ought to be referred. If it relate to a super-
natural truth, we must judge of it neither by the senses nof
by ~eason, but by Scripture and the decisions of the Church

1 Alii.3 ! :ilas !

TESTIMONY OF THE SENSES. 463

Should it concern an unrevealed truth, and something within
the reach of natural reason, reason must be its proper judge.
And if it embrace a point of fact, we must yield to the testi-
mony of the senses, to which it naturally belongs to take
cognizance of such matters.

So general is this rule, that, according to St. Augustine
and St. Thomas, when we meet with a passage even in the
Scripture, the literal meaning of which, at first sight, appears
contrary to what the senses or reason are certainly persuaded
of, we must not attempt to reject their testimony in this
case, and yield them up to the authority of that apparent
sense of the Scripture, but we must interpret the Scripture,
and seek out therein another sense agreeable to that sensible
truth ; because, the Word of God being infallible in the facts
which it records, and the information of the senses and of
reason, acting in their sphere, being certain also, it follows
that there must be an agreement between these two sources
of knowledge. And as Scripture may be interpreted in dif-
ferent ways, whereas the testimony of the senses is uniform,
we must in these matters adopt as the true interpretation of
Scripture that view which corresponds with the faithful re-
port of the senses. "Two things," says St. Thomas, "must
be observed, according to the doctrine of St. Augustine : first,
That Scripture has always one true sense ; and secondly, That
as it may receive various senses, when we have discovered
one which reason plainly teaches to be false, we must not per-
sist in maintaining that this is the natural sense, but search
out another with which reason will agree.'"

St. Thomas explains his meaning by the example of a
passage in Genesis, where it is written that " God created
two great lights, the sun and the moon, and also the stars,"
in which the Scriptures appear to say that the moon is
greater than all the stars; but as it is evident, from unques-
tionable demonstration, that this is false, it is not our duty,
Bays that saint, obstinately to defend the literal sense of that
passage; another meaning must be sought, consistent with

I. p. q. 68, a. 1.

4G4 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

the truth of the fact, such as the following, " That the phrase
great light, as applied to the moon, denotes the greatness of
that luminary merely as it appears in our eyes, and not the
magnitude of its body considered in itself."

An opposite mode of treatment, so far from procuring re-
spect to the Scripture, would only expose it to the contempt
of infidels ; because, as St. Augustine says, " when they
found that we believed, on the authority of Scripture, in
things which they assuredly knew to be false, they would
laugh at our credulity with regard to its more recondite
truths, such as the resurrection of the dead and eternal life."
" And by this means," adds St. Thomas, " we should render
our religion contemptible in their eyes, and shut up its en-
trance into their minds."

And let me add, father, that it would in the same mannei
be the likeliest means to shut up the entrance of Scripture
into the minds of heretics, and to render the pope's authority
contemptible in their eyes, to refuse all those the name ot
Catholics who would not believe that certain words were in
a certain book, where they are not to be found, merely be-
cause a pope by mistake has declared that they are. It is
only by examining a book that we can ascertain what words
it contains. Matters of fact can only be proved by the
senses. If the position which you maintain be true, show it,
or else ask no man to believe it — that would be to no pur-
pose. Not all the powers on earth can, by the force of
authority, persuade us of a point of fact, any more than
they can alter it ; for nothing can make that to be not which
really is.

It was to no purpose, for example, that the monks of Rat-
isbon procured from Pope St. Leo IX. a solemn decree, by
which he declared that the body of St. Denis, the first bishop
of Paris, who is generally held to have been the Areopagite,
had been transported out of France, and conveyed into the
zhapel of their monastery, [t is not the less true, for all
this, that the l>ody of that saint always lay, and lies to this
hour, in the celebrated abbey which bears his name, antf

GALILEO. 4 65

within the walls of which you would find it no easy matter
to obtain a cordial reception to this bull, although the pope
has therein assured us that he has examined the affair " with
all possible diligence (diligentissime), and with the advice of
many bishops and prelates; so that he strictly enjoins all the
French (districte prcecipienles) to own and confess that these
holy relics are no longer in their country." The French,
however, who knew that fact to be untrue, by the evidence
of their own eyes, and who, upon opeaing the shrine, found
all those relics entire, as the historians of that period inform
us, believed then, as they have always believed since, the re-
verse of what that holy pope had enjoined them to believe,
well knowing that even saints and prophets are liable to be
imposed upon.

It was to equally little purpose that you obtained against
Galileo a decree from Rome, condemning his opinion respect-
ing the motion of the earth. It will never be proved by such
an argument as this that the earth remains stationary ; and
if it can be demonstrated by sure observation that it is the
earth and not the sun that revolves, the efforts and argu-
ments of all mankind put together will not hinder our planet
from revolving, nor hinder themselves from revolving along
with her.

Again, you must not imagine that the letters of Pope
Zachary, excommunicating St. Virgilius for maintaining the
existence of the antipodes, have annihilated the New World ;
nor must you suppose that, although he declared that opin-
ion to be a most dangerous heresy, the king of Spain was
wrong in giving more credence to Christopher Columbus,
who came from the place, than to the judgment of the pope,
who had never been there, or that the Church has not de-
rived a vast benefit from the discovery, inasmuch as it has
brought the knowledge of the Gospel to a great multitude
of souls, who might otherwise have perished in their infi-
delity.

You see, then, father, what is the nature of matters of
fact, and on what principles they are to be determined ; from

20*

466 PROVINCIAL LETTER*.

all which, to recur to our subject, it is easy to conclude, that
if the five propositions are not in Jansenius, it is impossible
that they can have been extracted from him ; and that the
only way to form a judgment on the matter, and to produce
universal conviction, is to examine that book in a regular
conference, as you have been desired to do long ago. Until
that be done, you have no right to charge your opponents
with contumacy ; for they are as blameless in regard to the
point of fact as they are of errors in point of faith — Catholics
in doctrine, reasonable in fact, and innocent in both.

Who can help feeling astonishment, then, father, to see on
the one side a vindication so complete, and on the other ac-
cusations so outrageous ! Who would suppose that the only
question between you relates to a single fact of no importance,
which the one party wishes the other to believe without
showing it to them ! And who would ever imagine that
such a noise should have been made in the Church for noth-
ing (pro nihilo), as good St. Bernard says ! But this is just
one of the principal tricks of your policy, to make people be-
lieve that everything is at stake, when, in reality, there is
nothing at stake ; and to represent to those influential per-
sons who listen to you, that the most pernicious errors of
Calvin, and the most vital principles of the faith, are involved
in your disputes, with the view of inducing them, under this
conviction, to employ all their zeal and all their authority
against your opponents, as if the safety of the Catholic relig-
ion depended upon it ; whereas, if they came to know that
the whole dispute was about this paltry point of fact, they
would give themselves no concern about it, but would, on
the contrary, regret extremely that, to gratify your private
passions, they had made such exertions in an affair of no
consequence to the Church. For, in fine, to take the worst
view of the matter, even though it should be true that Jan-
senius maintained these propositions, what great misfortune
would accrue from some persons doubting of the fact, pro-
vided they detested the propositions, as they have publicly
declared that they do ? Is it not enough that they are con

CONCLUSION. 467

iemned by everybody, without exception, and that, too, in
the sense in which you have explained that you wish them
to be condemned ? Would they be more severely censured
by saying that Jansenius maintained them ? What purpose,
then, would be served by exacting this acknowledgment, ex-
cept that of disgracing a doctor and bishop, who died in the
communion of the Church ? I cannot see how that should
be accounted so great a blessing as to deserve to be pur
chased at the expense of so many disturbances. What inter-
est has the state, or the pope, or bishops, or doc torn, or the
Church at large, in this conclusion ? It does not affect them
in any way whatever, father ; it can affect none but your
Society, which would certainly enjoy some pleasure from the
defamation of an author who has done you some little injury.
Meanwhile everything is in confusion, because you have made
people believe that everything is in danger. This is the se-
cret spring giving impulse to all those mighty commotions,
which would cease immediately were the real state of the
controversy once known. And therefore, as the peace of the
Church depended on this explanation, it was, I conceive, of
the utmost importance that it should be given, that, by ex-
posing all your disguises, it might be manifest to the whole
world that your accusations were without foundation, your
opponents without error, and the Church without heresy.

Such, father, is the end which it has been my desire to
accomplish ; an end which appears to me, in every point of
view, so deeply important to religion, that I am at a loss to
conceive how those to whom you furnish so much occasion
for speaking can contrive to remain in silence. Granting
that they are not affected with the personal wrongs which
you have committed against them, those which the Church
suffers ought, in my opinion, to have forced them to com-
plain. Besides, I am not altogether sure if ecclesiastics
ought to make a sacrifice of their reputation to calumny,
especially in the matter of religion. They allow you, never-
theless, to say whatever you please; so that, had it not been
for the opportunity which, by mere accident, you afforded

168 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

tne of taking their part, the scandalous impressions which
you are circulating against them in all quarters would, in all
probability, have gone forth without contradiction. Their
patience, I confess, astonishes me ; and the more so, that I
cannot suspect it of proceeding either from timidity or from
incapacity, being well assured that they want neither argu
mcmts for their own vindication, nor zeal for the truth. And
yet I see them religiously bent on silence, to a degree which
appears to me altogether unjustifiable. For my part, father,
I do not believe that 1 can possibly follow their example.
Leave the Church in peace, and I shall leave you as you are,
with all my heart ; but so long as you make it your sole
business to keep her in confusion, doubt not but that there
shall always be found within her bosom children of peace,
who will consider themselves bound to employ all their en-
deavors to preserve her tranquillity.

LETTER XIX

FRAGMENT OT A NINETEENTH PROVINCIAL LETTER, ADDRESSED TO
FERE ANNAT.

REVEREND SIR, — If I have caused you some dissatisfaction,
in former Letters, by my endeavors to establish the innocence
of those whom you were laboring to asperse, I shall afford
you pleasure in the present, by making you acquainted with
the sufferings which you have inflicted upon them. Be com-
forted, my good father, the objects of your enmity are in
distress ! And if the Reverend the Bishops should be in-
duced to carry out, in their respective dioceses, the advice
you have given them, to cause to be subscribed and sworn
a certain matter of fact, which is, in itself, not credible, and
which it cannot be obligatory upon any one to believe — you
will indeed succeed in plunging your opponents to the depth
of sorrow, at witnessing the Church brought into so abject a
condition.

Yes, sir. I have seen them ; and it was with a satisfaction
Inexpressible ! I have seen these holy men ; and this was the
attitude in which they were found. They were not wrapt
up in a philosophic magnanimity ; they did not affect to ex-
hibit that indiscriminate firmness which urges implicit obedi-
ence to every momentary impulsive duty ; nor yet were they
in a frame of weakness and timidity, which would prevent
..hem from either discerning the truth, or following it when
discerned. But I found them with minds pious, composed,
and unshaken ; impressed with a meek deference for ecclesias-
tical authority ; with tenderness of spirit, zeal for truth, and
a desire to ascertain and obey her dictates : filled with a sal-
utary suspicion of themselves, distrusting their own infirm-
ity, and regretting that it should be thus exposed to trial ;

470 PROVINCIAL LETTERS.

yet withal, sustained by a modest hope that their Loid will
deign to instruct them by his illuminations, and sustain them
DV his power ; and believing, that that peace of their Saviour,
whose sacred influences it is their endeavor to maintain, and
for whose cause they are brought into suffering, will be, at
once, their guide and their support ! I have, in fine, seen
Ihem maintaining a character of Christian piety, whose
power

I found them surrounded by their friends, who had hastened
to impart those counsels which they deemed the most fitting
in their present exigency. I have heard those counsels ; 1
have observed the manner in which tlu-v were received, and
the answers given : and truly, my father, had you yourself
been present, I think you would have acknowledged that, in
their whole procedure, there was the entire* absence of a
spirit of insubordination and schism ; and that iheir only de-
sire and aim was, to preserve inviolate two things — to them
infinitely precious — peace and truth.

For, after due representations had been made to them of
the penalties they would draw upon themselves by their re-
fusal to sign the Constitution, and the scandal it might cause
in the Church, their reply was

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Full text of "The provincial letters of Blaise Pascal. A new translation with historical introduction and notes by Rev. Thomas M'Crie, preceded by a life of Pascal, a critical essay, and a biographical notice. Edited by O. W. Wight"

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